LONDON — A cloud of ash from an Icelandic volcano shut down much of air travel to and from Northern Europe for a third straight day and flights were likely to be disrupted through Monday morning as a massive transportation gridlock spread around the world.
Europe’s major airports — crucial hubs for international travelers and cargo — were closed. Eurocontrol, the European organization for the safety of air navigation, said that about 16,000 flights were canceled on the continent on Saturday.
France’s Prime Minister, François Fillion, who held an emergency meeting on Saturday, announced that Charles de Gaulle and Orly airports in Paris, among others in northern France, would be closed until 8 a.m. Monday. Airports in Northern Italy, including Milan’s Malpensa, were also ordered shut until 8 a.m.,
Actual evidence of the ash was being detected in Britain, where British Airways also canceled all of its short-haul flights until Monday morning.
In addition to shutdowns in Germany, where one Lufthansa official questioned the government’s use of British data for guidance, airports were closed in Belarus and Ukraine as the cloud spread eastward. Adding to the confusion was that scientists were uncertain when the plume, which presents a severe threat to aircraft, would dissipate. Volcanic ash is primarily made up of silicates, akin to glass fibers, which when ingested into a jet engine can melt, causing the engine to flame out and stall.
And one German meteorologist noted that the fine spring weather that reigned much of Europe — perfect flying weather under other circumstances — prolonged the ban on air traffic. The high pressure zone that delivered the sunny skies also helped hold the ash cloud in place, said Helmut Malewski, a meteorologist at the German Weather Service in Offenbach near Frankfurt.
One Icelandic geologist, Magnus Tumi Gudmundsson of the University of Iceland, told The Associated Press early Saturday that activity was increasing at the volcano Eyjafjallajokull (pronounced EY-ya-fyat-lah-YO-kut), whose eruption on Wednesday began disrupting air travel the next day. But in a statement released shortly after noon, a spokesman for Iceland’s Foreign Ministry, Urdur Gunnarsdottir, said that the force of the volcanic eruption under the glacier had been constant during the night until 4 a.m., when it appeared to decrease.
In extending its ban on flights to and from Britain until at least 7 a.m. Sunday, the National Air Traffic Services said that the cloud was “moving around and changing shape.” The British organization said that it had hoped that the cloud would move southward to open some air space, but instead new ash was coming from Iceland.
Britain’s Met Office, the national weather service, said on Saturday that the volcano is still erupting in pulses and evidence of ash dust over the country were now being detected. It said European air travel could be disrupted as a result for several days.
“The volcano has become rather more active this morning,” Barry Gromett, a spokesman for the Met office said Saturday. “We’re getting reports about thin ash deposits from all over the country. People expect to throw back the curtains and to see an apocalyptic cloud but that’s not the case. It’s more like a thin layer on cars.”
The Met Office in London said that a strong westerly wind forecast for the next 12 hours would move the ash initially away from Britain, but it then “curves around” and affect Britain, Scandinavia and Russia. “There’s not much that would indicate a change,” Mr. Gromett said. As Germany entered a second day when every airport in the country was closed to air traffic, the airline Lufthansa expressed impatience with what it suggested was excessive caution by authorities.
Instead of accepting data from British authorities, “it would help to look at other parameters,” said Amelie Schwierholz, a Lufthansa spokeswoman in Frankfurt. German authorities should do their own measurements of the density of volcanic particles, she said.
Ms. Schwierholz noted that a Lufthansa long-distance passenger jet with only a flight crew on board flew from Munich to Frankfurt on Saturday without incident, albeit at a much lower altitude than usual. Lufthansa plans other such “positioning flights,” which are allowed by regulations, so that aircraft will be where the airline needs them when commercial service resumes, she said.
But German officials defended their decision to close the skies. “What’s more important, the safety of passengers or business?” asked Mr. Malewski of the German Weather Service
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