Britain yesterday sent Royal Navy warships to rescue those stranded across the Channel by the volcanic ash cloud and the aviation industry blasted European officials, claiming there was “no coordination and no leadership” in the crisis that shut down most European airports for a fifth day.
Eurocontrol, the air traffic agency in Brussels, said less than one-third of flights in Europe were taking off yesterday — between 8,000 and 9,000 of the continent’s 28,000 scheduled flights.
Passengers in Asia who had slept on airport floors for days and were running out of money staged protests at airport counters.
PHOTO: REUTERS
All airports were open yesterday in Spain and the country volunteered to become the new hub of Europe to get stranded passengers moving again. Spanish Infrastructure Minister Jose Blanco said Spain could take in about 100,000 people under the new emergency plan, which focuses on aircraft trying to bring Britons home from Asia, Latin America and North America.
Spain will also beef up train, bus and ferry services to get travelers to their destinations, he said.
European airlines sought financial compensation for a crisis that is costing the industry an estimated US$200 million a day.
As pressure mounted from airlines, European civil aviation authorities were holding a conference call about what steps could be taken toward opening airspace.
“It’s embarrassing and a European mess,” said Giovanni Bisignani, chief executive of the International Air Transport Association (IATA). “It took five days to organize a conference call with the ministers of transport and we are losing US$200 million per day [and] 750,000 passengers are stranded all over. Does it make sense?”
In Paris, the IATA expressed its “dissatisfaction with how governments have managed it, with no risk assessment, no consultation, no coordination and no leadership.”
The group urged governments to more urgently “focus on how and when we can safely reopen Europe’s skies” — such as with more in-depth study of the ash cloud.
With airlines pressing for restrictions to be lifted, a senior Western diplomat said yesterday that several NATO F-16 fighters that flew through the ash cloud had suffered engine damage — evidence that the danger from the cloud is very real.
The official declined to provide more details on the military flights, except to say that glass-like deposits were found inside the planes’ engines. He spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the information.
Some smaller airports reopened, but authorities in Britain, France, Germany and the Netherlands said their air space was still closed.
Britain said it was keeping flight restrictions on through early today, while Italy briefly lifted restrictions in the north, then quickly closed down again after conditions worsened.
Eurocontrol said southern Europe was mostly open for flights — including Portugal, Spain, parts of Italy and France, the Balkans, Bulgaria, Greece and Turkey — as were parts of northern Europe.
In London, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said the aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal and assault ship HMS Ocean would be sent across the English Channel. A third ship is being sent to Spain to pick up soldiers trying to get back to Britain after a tour of duty in Afghanistan.
“I expect Ocean to be in the Channel today. I expect the Ark Royal to be moving toward the Channel later,” Brown said after meeting with the government’s emergency committee.
He said Britain was speaking with Spanish authorities to see whether Britons stranded overseas could be flown there and then taken home by boat or bus.
Tensions boiled over at Incheon International Airport in South Korea, where 30 frustrated passengers blocked a Korean Air ticketing counter and demanded officials arrange travel to anywhere in Europe after hearing about the test flights.
“We need a flight, we need a time,” Thierry Loison, who has been stuck at the airport since Friday on the way back to France, told Korean Air officials. “We were like animals this morning.”
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