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No Airport Expansion! is a campaign group that aims to provide a rallying point for the many local groups campaigning against airport expansion projects throughout the UK.
The Met Office has developed two products for the London VAAC that use satellite data to detect and track volcanic ash clouds.
The Volcanic Ash Detection Tool uses the brightness temperature difference between two spectral channels to detect, monitor and track the movement of volcanic ash.
The Volcanic Eruption Detection System uses a shape-matching technique to produce an automated alert that a suspected volcanic eruption cloud has been detected.
Parts of the UK’s airspace are at risk of closure from Sunday because of volcanic activity in Iceland, the Department for Transport has said.
Disruption could hit airports in south-east England until Tuesday, it warned.
Transport Secretary Philip Hammond said the situation was “fluid” but that passenger safety was the top priority.
British Airways will discuss the likely impact with air traffic control body, Nats. Airport operator BAA said the situation would be clearer by Sunday.
Ash from the Eyjafjallajokull volcano has caused disruption to thousands of flights since April.
It’s good to have information in advance but we are acutely aware that things can change quickly
BAA spokesman
Meanwhile, Italy has fined Irish airline Ryanair 3m euros ( £2.5m) for failing to help some passengers after cancelling their flights during the crisis.
Ministers agreed on Saturday that five-day ash prediction charts would be made available on the Met Office website.
The Department for Transport said in a statement: “Within this timeframe, different parts of UK airspace – including airspace in the south east – are likely to be closed at different times.”
Previous forecasts were only given for the following 18 hours.
Transport Secretary Mr Hammond said the five-day forecasts would ensure “airlines, other transport providers and the public [had] the best possible information”.
But he stressed the situation “remained fluid” and the forecasts – based on assumptions about future volcanic activity and prevailing weather conditions – were “always liable to change”.
“Nats – the UK’s air traffic services provider – will advise of any airspace closures as and when they become necessary and I urge passengers to check with their airlines before taking any action,” he added.
‘No firm details’
The Met Office said its charts would be updated every six hours. A spokeswoman said the ash plume was currently about 25,000ft (7,620m) high, with winds blowing from the north west, creating a risk of ash being blown over UK airspace.
But she said the wind was expected to change direction in the middle of next week, taking ash away from the UK.
Scottish transport minister Stewart Stevenson said he welcomed the five-day forecasts, but called upon airlines to be “consistent” to “avoid unnecessary and unhelpful confusion”.
He said he had written to BA chief executive Willie Walsh after the airline cancelled three flights to Scotland on Friday.
A volcano can be erupting for several years and not cause any problems
A BA spokesman said the flights were cancelled as a “precaution”, and added it was “constantly in touch with Nats, the CAA and the Met Office… and it would be guided by safety considerations first”.
“The latest advice is that we may have disruption from 6pm tomorrow but we won’t know until nearer the time,” he added.
BA is facing strike action in the coming days, potentially adding to travel disruption.
A spokesman for BAA, which operates Heathrow, Stansted and Southampton airports in the south of England and Glasgow, Edinburgh and Aberdeen airports in Scotland, also welcomed the new five-day forecasts.
“It’s good to have information in advance but we are acutely aware that things can change quickly,” he said.
“Over the next 24 hours we’ll have a much clearer idea how it will affect southern England,” he added.
A spokeswoman for Gatwick Airport said it was “business as usual”, with a flight schedule “operating normally” unless it was “informed otherwise” by the Department for Transport or the Met Office.
Safe-to-fly threshold
Andrew McConnell, a spokesman for easyJet, said it was “frustrating” that the modelling regulators were using meant airport and airspace closures could only be confirmed six hours in advance.
[There is a video clip
– Peter Gibbs explains how the ash cloud is moving into UK airspace].
He said the airline planned to operate between 95% and 99% of its flights on Sunday morning, with Belfast “the only area of concern”.
“As the situation is changing throughout the night we advise passengers to check easyjet.com before leaving home,” he added.
Meanwhile, Network Rail said it was boosting services to and from Scotland, and to Irish Sea ports.
Robin Gisby, Network Rail’s director of operations and customer service, said, if necessary, engineering work would also be postponed to allow more services to run.
“The situation is being kept under review and we will continue to develop robust contingency plans,” he said.
Dr Dougal Jerram, a volcanologist from Durham University, warned the last big eruption of Eyjafjallajokull – in the 1820s – went on for around two years, and its current eruption could last “several months”.
But he said the continued eruptions would not necessarily cause problems to air travel, as a number of factors – explosive eruptions, a concentrated plume and certain weather patterns – needed to be in place at the same time to create “the perfect storm”.
‘Could be worse’
“During the last phase, where it was more explosive, the weather patterns weren’t so bad and it wasn’t as disruptive as it could be.
“A volcano can be erupting for several years and not cause any problems,” he said.
In April, airspace across Europe was shut down for five days following concerns that ash could turn to molten glass in high temperatures, crippling plane engines.
Scientists and engineers have since revised the safe-to-fly threshold, but clouds of volcanic ash have continued to drift over Europe, causing airport closures, flight delays and cancellations.
But in the past week, several airports in southern Europe have been forced to close and flights have been re-routed.
Italy’s civil aviation authority fine on Ryanair comes after it said it knew of 178 cases of passengers who did not receive mandatory assistance, such as food – required under EU regulations – between 17 and 22 April.
A spokeswoman for Ryanair, which initially insisted it would only refund the cost of passengers’ tickets, but later agreed to fully implement European regulations and pay all “reasonable expenses”, said the allegation was “complete rubbish”.
“Ryanair fully complies with EU [Regulation] 261 and has been complimented by the EU,” she said.
