Aviation authority insists it didn’t over-react

THE Irish Aviation Authority has rejected any suggestion it over-reacted in closing Irish airspace for most of the past week due to the risk of volcanic ash to aircraft.

IAA chief executive Eamon Brennan said the IAA was following “standard procedure” in grounding aircraft given such an unprecedented event.

“It was the right thing to do in the circumstances,” said Mr Brennan yesterday.

He also stressed the IAA had come under no pressure from Irish airlines to open Irish airspace to allow flights to resume. Indeed, Mr Brennan praised Irish carriers for agreeing with the IAA’s assessment of the risk at all times.

He told a meeting of the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport that 2,139 commercial flights due to carry some 300,000 passengers had been cancelled at Irish airports over the past week.

Mr Brennan said it was estimated that the disruption was costing European airlines around €200m per day including a daily loss of €6m for Ryanair and €5m for Aer Lingus.

He pointed out that up to 78% of all scheduled flights within Europe had been affected by the closure of airspace.

Mr Brennan said EU aviation authorities had needed time to identify the density of the volcanic ash plume at various altitudes before reaching an EU-wide agreement on how to deal with the situation.

It has now been agreed that a no-fly zone around the plume which includes a safety buffer distance will be implemented with the restricted area being reviewed every six hours.

Mr Brennan said claims by some airlines that pilots should have been allowed to fly aircraft visually were “rubbish”.

He stated it was important to realise that aviation authorities were dealing with a very volatile volcano whose eruptions were unpredictable. He also anticipated that it would continue to cause problems for flights over Europe in the immediate future.

Mr Brennan told the committee that the Eyjafjallajökull volcano was emitting 750 metric tonnes of ash per second into the atmosphere at the peak of its eruption. He pointed out that its plume was regularly reaching heights of 35,000 feet – an altitude frequently used by commercial aircraft. The IAA chief executive stressed that volcanic ash posed a very serious hazard to aircraft as it formed a glass-like coating on jet engines which could damage or even stop their functioning.

Mr Brennan said there were already four documented cases of aircraft engines shutting down after flying into plumes of volcanic ash.

The committee heard the IAA was optimistic that Irish airspace would remain open over the next few days as the projected wind direction will be south-westerly which will push the volcanic ash away from Ireland.

Maurice Mullen, chairman of the Government Taskforce on Emergency Planning, said it was estimated that up to 40,000 Irish citizens had been stranded abroad at any one stage.