The ash that grounded Europe

Flights began to resume across Europe this week, nearly a week after the eruption of an Icelandic volcano created the worst peacetime travel disruption in history. The Eyjafjallajökull volcano shot thousands of tons of ash 30,000 feet into the air, creating a cloud of tiny, sand-like particles that could damage airplane engines. Tens of thousands of flights in and out of Europe were canceled, stranding hundreds of thousands of people all over the world. Airlines lost nearly $2 billion in revenue, and the U.S. tourism industry suffered a $650 million blow.

It could take weeks until the flight backlog is resolved. The eruption and ash clouds were subsiding, but could resume at any time. The International Air Transport Association called on European governments to compensate airlines for what they claim was an overreaction. “I don’t believe it was necessary to impose a blanket ban on all U.K. airspace,” said British Airways CEO Willie Walsh. “We could have safely continued operating.”

What self-serving nonsense, said airline pilot Patrick Smith in Salon.com. Flights through volcanic ash have produced “near-catastrophes,” such as in 1982, when all four engines of a British Airways 747 stopped after hitting a plume from an Indonesian volcano; luckily, the plane restarted. There was “no choice, really, but to err on the safe side.”

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

The crisis may be far from over, said Anne Applebaum in The Washington Post. Europeans have grown increasingly dependent on air travel, not just for the products on the shelves but for work and leisure as well. If Eyjafjallajökull keeps belching for two years, like it did the last time it erupted, in the 19th century, it could “change the economics and politics of an entire region.”

“We can adapt,” said The Wall Street Journal in an editorial. Humans find ways “to survive changes in the environment”—which is something global warming paranoiacs should keep in mind. Even now, engineers are working to develop ash-resistant jet engines. “In the contest of Man versus Eyjafjallajökull, our money is not on the volcano.”