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The ash effect: Global flight plans go awry
Vibha Sharma/Tribune News Service

New Delhi, April 16
Air travel disarray across the globe deepened on Friday with high-altitude clouds of volcanic ash from Iceland spreading further across northern and central Europe and ripple effect of the natural phenomenon being felt in far-off India as well.

All long-haul flights between India and UK, US, Canada and some other European cities of national carrier Air India and private operators Jet Airways and Kingfisher Airlines were either cancelled or indefinitely delayed due to closure of airspace over several north European airports to forestall potentially catastrophic damage to jet engines by the plume of Icelandic volcanic ash.

Quoting NATS — UK’s leading Air Navigation Service Provider -- the Ministry of Civil Aviation said clouds from Icelandic volcano continued to hang over European skies, shutting down major airport hubs like Frankfurt, London and Paris for the second day. NATS advisory says restrictions will continue in UK-controlled airspace until 0030 hours on April 17. Euro Control — the European Organisation for the Safety of Air Navigation — has also issued similar advisory for airlines.

Measures had to be initiated at airports in Delhi and Mumbai to minimise ripple effects arising out of air traffic disruption. A large number of flights to India pass through affected airspace over Europe and many of these flights had to be cancelled, rescheduled or diverted.

According to DIAL officials, all incoming passenger flights from London and other European destinations were closely monitored and made to land on time. However, due to restrictions in the European airspace many of these flights could not take off for their return journey, leading to shortage of parking bays at IGI for incoming aircraft.

To manage the situation, incoming cargo flights were diverted to other airports and parking bays available at the international cargo apron used to park incoming passenger aircraft. However, there still was shortage of parking bays and it was then decided to park five wide-bodied aircraft on adjoining aircraft taxiways, currently not used due to the runway 28 rehabilitation work.