Volcanic ash forces closure of UK airports; AI cancels flights

London/New Delhi: Air passengers across the world travelling to and from Europe suffered once again after a dense cloud of volcanic ash drifting from Iceland forced closure of airports in northern England, Scotland and northern Ireland. Flights between India and the United Kingdom were also affected.
Though British and Irish aviation authorities tried hard to keep busy airports like Heathrow in operation for as late as possible, it had to be shut down on Sunday along with other major airports like Gatwick and London City. Several other airports now face similar fate.
Manchester airport spokesperson Russell Craig said, "I guess the main thing that people can take some reassurance from is what happened in Scotland last week where rather than airports being closed for many days by this ash they were only closed for a few hours and flights were able to operate from other airports."
German Aerospace Centre sent up a test flight on Sunday to measure the ash concentration in the area.
Meanwhile, the national carrier of India announced cancellation of all its flights to London from Delhi and Mumbai on Monday citing the closure of Heathrow airport as the reason.
Not just Air India, other private airlines have also been affected and forced to cancel flights to London. According to reports, AI was likely to hold a review meet later in the day to take stock of the situation.
17/05/10 India Today

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Categories: Air India - International May 2010, Foreign May 2010, NACIL May 2010