Icelandic volcano: hundreds forced to abandon plans as ash cloud forces more flight cancellations

Hundreds of passengers were forced to abandon their travel plans after ash from an Icelandic volcano caused yet more flight cancellations in Scotland. 

 

 

Hundreds of passengers spent the day waiting to hear if their planned journeys would go ahead.

But this evening brought bad news as more carriers cancelled flights from Scotland.

The disruption comes as a second volcanic ash cloud in a year made its way across the country's airspace from Iceland.

Ryanair was the first airline to announce it had cancelled all scheduled flights to and from Scotland for the remainder of the day.

And British Airways said it would not operate any flights to and from Glasgow and Edinburgh, following reports of "significant" volcanic ash in and around Scottish airspace.

In a statement, a spokeswoman for Ryanair said: "Following a direction from the Irish Aviation Authority (IAA), Ryanair regrets that we have been forced to cancel all flights to/from Scottish airports for the remainder of the day."

Earlier today Ryanair carried out a test flight at up to 41,000ft in Scottish airspace, taking an aircraft from Glasgow Prestwick to Inverness and on to Aberdeen and Edinburgh.

The spokeswoman said there was no visible ash cloud or any other presence of volcanic ash and the post-flight inspection revealed no evidence of volcanic ash on the airframe, wings or engines.

She added: "Ryanair has renewed its calls on both the UK CAA (Civil Aviation Authority) and the IAA to reopen the airspace over Scotland and allow airlines to operate flights safely following the verification flight."

A spokesman for British Airways said: "British Airways has decided as a precaution that it will not operate any further flights to and from Glasgow, Edinburgh and Newcastle on Tuesday May 24.

"At present all other flights are unaffected, including our flights to and from Aberdeen."

Later, an announcement was made that all airlines operating from Edinburgh Airport had decided to cancel their flights for the rest of the day, based on guidance from the CAA..

Prestwick Airport reported it had no flights coming in or out of the airport throughout the day.

EasyJet's website stated that all flights to and from Scotland were cancelled until at least 7pm today

Scots regional airline Loganair scrapped all of its services until 1pm today, excluding Orkney inter-island services, with 38 flights due to depart or arrive between 6am and 1pm cancelled.

But it announced that flights between Aberdeen and Kirkwall, Aberdeen and Sumburgh and all services between Inverness Stornoway and Benbecula were operating as normal this afternoon.

Glasgow Airport's cafes were packed today as passengers waited for news.

Guy McKinven, from the Clyde Valley area, was travelling with easyJet to Stansted to spend a week with his grandmother.

He said: "You see people shouting and getting upset, but there's nothing you can do.

"EasyJet have been helpful and have told me I can have a refund for my flight."

Amanda McMillan, managing director of Glasgow Airport, told BBC Radio Scotland's Good Morning Scotland programme that the airport had seen around 40 per cent of its flights take off before lunchtime. moving into UK airspace, allowed planning throughout the night with airlines.

Ms McMillan added: "We took some lessons from last year, so I'm pretty proud how we've coped this morning."

MP Ann McKechin, Labour's shadow Scottish secretary, said: "It is good that the lessons from last year's widespread disruption caused by ash seem to have been learnt and I'm pleased to see the Scottish Government is taking the appropriate action of convening an emergency committee to deal with this issue." 

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