I will be brief. We have circulated a short presentation, the main contents of which are pictures and maps. It is quite an interesting document. It begins with the eruption of what I will term the Icelandic volcano. If the Acting Chairman can actually pronounce the name of the latter, I congratulate him. The second page of the document contains photographic evidence of the extent of the plume which emerged when the volcano in question erupted. The main eruption happened last Wednesday and the result was drift down over Irish and European airspace on Thursday. I will describe this shortly. The red arrow on page 3 gives an indication of the ash cloud over Iceland and I will show the committee the way it drifts. The white stuff is snow from some of the mountains but one can see the ash starting to drift up the way there into the top atmosphere.
The next page is a quick satellite image of the volcano and I will deal with how we responded to it shortly. We can see the lava fountain, the steam and so on to give some perspective. This is an unstable volcano and the problem we were faced with in the past week is that it could erupt on day 1, be quiet on day 2 and then erupt again on day 3. Each time it is under control, it could go out of control again from a geological point of view.
The next page has a 30 on the bottom right of it. We can see the airspace. Iceland is up in the north and there is Reykjavik FIR, and Shanwick, which is Shannon. We are in the zone with 90% of all the traffic. It is important to realise that is a dense traffic zone and that would be different from other parts of the world where volcanos are located, which I will come to later.
The next one shows volcanic ash magnified 100 times under a microscope. It is a crystalline, glassy, sandy, ashy type deposit and it is similar to glass and silica. The principal concern the aviation authorities throughout Europe had is the effect of volcanic ingestion on jet and turbo fan engines. Because of the high temperature in the engine, the ingestion of the ash melts and forms a glass coating which can stop, damage and impede the performance of the engine and so on. It presents a serious hazard, mainly to the fuel system and to the engine cooling system, and it can severely affect aircraft operations. That is the major worry. I quote four examples of many on the next page. There was a total engine failure of a 747-200 in Indonesia, a 747 cargo in Alaska, a 727 as a result of the Mount St. Helens eruption and a DC-8.
The next page shows the operational problem we had. Iceland's volcano rises to 5,465 feet and the normal cruising altitude aircraft use is between 35,000 feet to 40,000 feet. The ash cloud went to 35,000 feet. At its peak, the volcano was emitting 750 metric tonnes per second into the atmosphere and the plume at its peak was 6 km high. It is now down to 2 km. The difficulty for jets and turbo fans is they must come down through the ash cloud to land in an airport and that caused the problem.
The next page is a sample shot from 20 April at 3 a.m. showing ash dispersion. It is not a density chart but most of the aircraft tracked south towards Spain to get to Europe that night and all the normal tracks running through Ireland and the UK had to be closed completely. It was an interesting night. It was the first time in 60 years that the US-Ireland-mainland Europe track was fully closed without access due to the ash.
The next page refers to wind direction. On 20 April, the direction was northerly, which means it was blowing the ash on top of Ireland and the UK. The problem is we had unique meteorological phenomena over recent days. The projected wind direction over the next few days, I am glad to say, is much more optimistic in that it will be south westerly and that should enable us to proceed on a much better basis over the next few days.
The next page is described as "Impact". Since last Thursday, 2,139 flights have been cancelled at Dublin Airport and regional airports affecting approximately 300,000 passengers. Airline losses in Europe are estimated to be €200 million a day. We have tried to get an estimate of what it is costing Irish airlines. We met some of their representatives earlier. Ryanair says it is losing approximately €6 million a day; Aer Lingus, €5 million a day; and CityJet, €1 million a day. This is a significant cost to the airlines because many of their costs such as crews and so on are fixed. Their variable costs are low.
The next page refers to the impact on European flights, which is dramatic. During the peak days, 78% of flights were cancelled on Saturday, 17 April and 67% on Monday, 19 April. If one was inside the ash zone, one was not flying. The number of flights is significantly down on a year ago in any event. Traffic in Europe is down approximately 10% because of the recession. It was a major catastrophe for airlines and passengers last week when there was a 52% dip.
The next page outlines what we did. It is important to recognise the unprecedented scope of this crisis that hit us and to realise that we had learned valuable lessons from other volcanic eruptions in other parts of the world, including from the Federal Aviation Administration, FAA, in regard to the Mount St. Helens incident, New Zealand and Indonesia. However, we were faced with a problem on a different scale because this ash cloud went right over the continent in an area of dense traffic. New Zealand, Alaska and so on do not have the same density of traffic as Europe. It was unprecedented from that point of view.
We acted pretty sharpish. First we closed all the airspace. Everybody in Europe did that. The reason is we are not in the business of taking risks and the most important thing was safety. There was no overreaction. This is the standard procedure where there is a risk and it was the right thing to do in the circumstances. Then, on a Europe-wide basis, we went about collecting data about the density of the ash cloud. The big unknown was not the amount of ash but its density at each level. We had four to five days of test flights by KLM and Lufthansa and British Airways did a test flight for us over Irish airspace on Saturday. A Dornier from the UK CAA also did test flights. We assembled scientific analysis of data and empirical data. We were trying to build a risk model. Ireland and the UK decided to take a joint approach. There is no point in Ireland going X and the UK going Y because our main routes are in and out of the UK. We did this in a European context.
We agreed a longer-term solution, which is on the next page. By Monday, we were in a position to bring a proposal through Eurocontrol to a transport ministers Council meeting on Monday afternoon. We came up with a longer-term, more sustainable future based on the scientific and empirical research done over the previous five days. We agreed a no-fly zone around the plume on a Europe-wide basis with a safety buffer. This is reviewed every six hours. We have also agreed with the engine manufacturers more inspections and monitoring of engines and centralised reporting and updating of information.
The next page illustrates the no-fly zones, as of noon on 20 April, to the north and south of Ireland. It means aircraft cannot be operated under any circumstances in those zones. The red mark indicates the buffer zone. As far as operations are concerned, if either of those zones are over Ireland, we are not in a position to operate aircraft.
On the next page it can be seen that by 6 a.m. today, 21 April, the cloud had moved off to a single area of concentration, just north-west of Ireland. That is the no-fly zone. It is an important consideration and we should be aware that there is ash in the atmosphere generally, but we have agreed procedures whereby we can operate with the engine manufacturers' consent. With the airlines' safety and empirical data, we can operate with reduced levels of ash. We have been able to measure this.
I will move on now to the next page where the point I want to illustrate is that the no-fly zone keeps moving north. The pages are not numbered because we had to put this presentation together quickly. On the next page, the red line indicates what the system would look like tomorrow morning if we had done nothing. If we had not worked and co-operated with the European Union and the United Kingdom, Ireland would be the one area that would probably be closed tomorrow while the UK and everywhere else would be operating. However, because we have developed a scientific risk model, we have had a very positive response from the Commission and the other authorities and are able to operate.
I will look at the conclusions now. The current situation is unprecedented. Safety is our number one priority. I have heard a number of people say the aircraft should operate and be flown visually. By and large, this is rubbish. We do not agree with that here and neither Ireland nor the UK would operate that way. We are quite a strong regulator. It is quite simple. If there is a safety risk, it is important we do not operate. That is the basis on which we operate. We have had no commercial pressure from any airline of any type or sort asking us to open. I compliment the Irish airlines not alone on not putting us under pressure but also because all of them agreed with our assessment and risk model and supported us through this. We now have an agreed ongoing approach.
I remind the committee that this is not over. If the volcano erupts again and if we are in the designated no-fly zone, the airspace and the airports will have to be closed again. However, we now have a European-wide approach to dealing with the situation. This means that if the cloud affects Ireland, this does not mean the whole Continent will be shut, as it would have been up to last week. From now on, only a buffer zone and the core area will be shut and extra precautions will be taken. To give an example, as the ash cloud drifts further, the risk area changes. I spoke to my colleague in Scandinavia today and it is now experiencing airport and air space closures because the main risk area is there. Therefore, we have come to a better solution and better way of managing the situation. This has been done with the strong co-operation of the UK Civil Aviation Authority and the Federal Aviation Administration of the United States. What we have put together is a strong, robust model that will ensure the safety of the travelling public.
I included the final slide because I thought it was a good one. It might please the Acting Chairman. Last night we were in a position to open Shannon to flights. A British Airways aircraft had left the United States and then British air space closed, so we took quite a number of British Airways aircraft in Shannon.
I hope I have provided a reasonable explanation of the situation. We have acted at all times solely in the interest of safety. We have tried to make progress as quickly as possible but we could not decide to change anything until we had the empirical evidence based on the test flights. That was the main reason we had difficulty making quick progress. We had to gather a volume of data. Otherwise the engine manufacturers would not approve the revised procedures. This took some time. The procedures are now in place and it is to be hoped we will not have a recurrence of the situation.
