24 May 2011

Miscellaneous

Are We Prepared the Second Time Around?

Are you going on holiday in the next few weeks or are you on holiday right now and are coming back in the next couple of days. If you are, you could have landed yourself in a spot of bother.

I'm talking about that ash cloud again, this time it's from a different Icelandic volcano - Grimsvötn. The eruption is larger; however the circumstances we find ourselves in are different. Supposedly the aviation authority has learnt their lesson from last year's chaos.

After last year's shambolic turn of events which led to the aviation industry losing around two billion pounds of revenue, they have said that this time around they will have it under control. For their sakes, I hope they have. 

Supposedly they have introduced new laws and have since found that planes can withstand a certain amount of ash density in the air compared to a complete blanket ban on air traffic in the UK like this time last year. 

Are you planning on going away in the next couple of weeks or currently away and looking to fly home? Everyone seems to have a little sense of panic, my parents are due to fly to Italy on the 4th of June and right now they are making a decision on whether to book any accommodation and potentially lose money if their flight is cancelled.

I've been scanning the news for the last 24 hours and it seems as though this time around it will be a completely different scenario, not only are the psychical effects different. The ash is a larger density and the weather is much more changeable than last year. Plus, there are now new rules in place which are more lenient, supposedly a lot of research has been done into the subject and the aviation authority has created a level system for the density of ash ranging from low, medium and high. In areas with a medium to high density of ash the individual aviation company make the decision and present it to the aviation authority.

I'm hoping that this time around it will all be under control and result in much less disruption to people who are in the process of travelling abroad by air. Happy holidays.