16 Pages Number 74 2st Year
Chinese president Hu flies to Tibetan quake zone
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Monday, April 19, 2010
BCSM applied in Ngurah Rai Airport Foreign citizen to pass biometric system PAGE 8
Green Day’s “American Idiot” hits Great White Way
AFP PHOTO/ANP/ROBIN UTRECHT
Passengers looking for alternatives forms of transportation due to cancellation of flights queue at the service desk in the railway station in Amsterdam on April 17, 2010. Millions of people faced worsening travel chaos today as a volcanic ash cloud from Iceland, which risks lingering over Europe for up to five more days, forced countries to extend flight bans.
Test flights raise hope for European air traffic
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Reuters
LONDON – Air travel across much of Europe was paralysed for a fourth day on Sunday by a huge cloud of volcanic ash, but Dutch and German test flights carried out without apparent damage seemed to offer some hope of respite.
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Dutch airline KLM said overnight inspection of an airliner after a test flight showed no damage to engines or other parts from ash in the atmosphere. Lufthansa also reported problem-free test flights, while Italian and French carriers announced they would be flying empty airliners on Sunday to assess conditions. For the moment, a clampdown on flights across much of Europe was strictly maintained, posing a growing problem for businesses including airlines, estimated to be losing $200 million a day, and thousands of travellers stranded worldwide. Many countries closed their airspace until well into Sunday or Monday, and weather experts said wind patterns meant the cloud was
not likely to move far until later in the week. They said the dark grey plume rising from an Icelandic volcano and drifting southwards through the upper atmosphere could become more concentrated on Tuesday and Wednesday. For some businesses dependent on the speed of air freight, the impact has been immediate. Kenya’s flower exporters said they were already losing up to $2 million a day because they had not been able to airlift their blooms. Kenya accounts for about a third of flower imports into the European Union. Volcanic ash has an abrasive effect and can strip off vital aerodynamic surfaces and paralyse an aircraft engine. Aircraft avionics and
electronics, as well as windshields, can also be damaged. KLM, acting on a European Union request, flew a Boeing 737800 without passengers at the regular altitude of 10 km (6 miles) and up to the 13 km maximum on Saturday. Germany’s Lufthansa said it flew 10 empty planes to Frankfurt from Munich at altitudes of up to 8 km. “We have not found anything unusual and no irregularities, which indicates the atmosphere is clean and safe to fly,” said a spokeswoman for KLM, which is part of Air France-KLM. German airline Air Berlin said it had also carried out test flights and expressed irritation at the shutdown of European air space. “We are amazed that the results of the test flights done by Lufthansa and Air Berlin have not had any bearing on the decision-making of the air safety authorities,” Chief Executive Joachim Hunold said. “The closure of the air space happened purely because of the data of
a computer simulation at the Vulcanic Ash Advisory Centre in London,” he told the mass circulation Bild am Sonntag paper. The air travel disruption is the worst since the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and Washington in 2001, when U.S. airspace was closed for three days and European airlines were forced to halt all transatlantic services. WORLD LEADERS
The cloud has forced several world leaders to rearrange travel plans. U.S. President Barack Obama, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and others cancelled trips to Poland for the funeral on Sunday of Polish President Lech Kaczynski, killed in a plane crash in Russia a week ago. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev went ahead with his flight to Krakow. U.S.-based forecaster AccuWeather said the ash was in an area of weak wind flow and was unlikely to move far on Monday. Continued on page 6