Volcanic Ash Heads For Heathrow, Threatening To Snarl Travel

Airlines and air traffic controllers across Europe watched and waited nervously Tuesday as a cloud of volcanic ash spread west from Iceland, threatening to disrupt flights on a wide scale. The ash cloud was expected to reach London's Heathrow airport -- the world's busiest international air travel hub -- around lunchtime, Europe's air traffic control organization Eurocontrol said Tuesday.Concentration of ash there is expected to be low and it's not yet clear if Heathrow flights will be canceled.The ash cloud is forecast to cover all of British airspace by 1 a.m. Wednesday morning, Britain's weather agency, the Met Office, said Tuesday.
There is a "strong possibility" ash could also affect Denmark and other parts of Scandinavia Tuesday, Eurocontrol said.At least 252 flights to and from Scotland and Northern Ireland were canceled Tuesday, according to the agency.A volcanic ash cloud a year ago forced the cancellation of thousands of flights per day at the peak of the problem.Volcanic ash can be a serious hazard to aircraft, reducing visibility, damaging flight controls and ultimately causing jet engines to fail.British Transport Minister Phillip Hammond was due to chair a high-level meeting about the ash cloud on Tuesday, the British government said.Airlines have been making the case that it is safe to fly through ash clouds of medium density, Britain's Civil Aviation Authority said Tuesday.Carriers including British Airways, Virgin and EasyJet are now free to fly through clouds of up to 4,000 micrograms per cubic meter if they feel it is safe to do so, Richard Taylor of the CAA told .The budget airline Ryanair, one of Europe's biggest carriers, separately argued Tuesday that Scottish airspace should not be closed after a test flight it carried out found no ash.But Taylor told  Ryanair's claims were "not true" and that the test flight did not go where the airline claimed. U.S. President Barack Obama left Ireland for England Monday, a day earlier than planned, to make sure the ash cloud would not affect his flight plan "Due to a recent change in the trajectory in the plume of volcanic ash, Air Force One will depart Ireland for London tonight.
The schedule for tomorrow will proceed as planned," White House spokesman John Earnest told Scotland's Loganair announced that all flights will be canceled Tuesday due to forecasts that indicate "a high density of ash will be present in large parts of Scottish airspace.British Airways and Dutch airline KLM also canceled dozens of scheduled Tuesday flights to and from locations in Scotland. Barcelona's soccer team also announced on Twitter that it would fly early to London for its Saturday match against Manchester United in the Champions League Final. The ash forced the closure of Icelandic airspace over the weekend, raising the specter of the kind of disruption of trans-Atlantic and European air travel that took place last year. Thousands of flights were canceled last April and May during the eruption of Eyjafjallajokull, causing chaos for travelers and financial nightmares for airlines.But Britain's Civil Aviation Authority said new arrangements have been put in place since last year's eruption of another Icelandic volcano, and those changes should reduce the number of flights that have to be canceled if the ash cloud spreads.
The main international airport in Iceland reopened Monday evening, according to the airport's website.There were no international flights in or out of the country on Sunday after Grimsvotn -- Europe's most active volcano -- began to erupt on Saturday.The Grimsvotn volcano under the Vatnajokull glacier erupted Saturday, according to the Icelandic Meteorological Office.The last eruption of the volcano was in 2004, affiliate