Ashes to ashes
 

KLM cancelled flights to Scotland and Northern England (Aberdeen, Glasgow, Newcastle and Edinburgh) for Tuesday morning (until 11am) because of the latest Icelandic ashes......

Now also on KLM website - 20 minutes after nu.nl had the news.........

Volcanic eruption from Iceland's Grimsvötn
Since Saturday the Grimsvotn volcano in Iceland is active. The Vocanic Ash Authority expects the cloud of volcanic ash to be arriving over Scotland and Northern England.

Based on this info and on own expertise KLM has decided to adjust flight operations for Tuesday morning 24 May 2011.

The following flights to and from Aberdeen, Glasgow, Edingburgh and Newcastle will be cancelled for Tuesday morning 24 May:

to and from Glasgow: KL 1470, KL 1477 and KL 1478
to and from Newcastle: KL 952, KL 953 and KL 954
to and from Aberdeen: KL 1440, KL 141, KL 1442, KL 1443 and KL 1444
to and from Edinburgh: KL 1276, KL 1277, KL 1278, KL 1279 and KL l1280

Affected customers will be re-booked and notified by KLM.

KLM expects to operate all other flights as scheduled. KLM is in continuous contact with the relevant authorities and closely monitors the situation. If the situation dictates so action will be taken accordingly.

Well I will see if my lunchtime MAN flight is ok ... :(

Hope it keeps in that region (or not at all) but stays away from the rest of Europe. Nobody wants a repeat of last year.
OT: AFKLM shares already dropped 4,5% because of the anticipated problems due to the ash.

Booked to Newcastle with KLM on Thursday morning, and start to get a really bad feeling about that.

Does KLM rebook on other carriers if the flight will be cancelled? As long as I get to the UK I'm happy :rolleyes:

You don't say where you are starting your journey, but as long as you can get to AMS you have several other options (which will just take a bit longer...).

If flights to other parts of the UK are operating you can take a flight elsewhere and continue by train.

If not then - depending on timings - there is the direct ferry to Newcastle, or the ferry to Harwich, or even Eurostar (though that's a bit of a detour).

Good luck!

Flying from Stuttgart to AMS, and to get a ferry I would need to fly tomorrow so I'm i time in Newcastle.
But yes, as long as I can get to the UK I don't mind (Eurostar is already 600 GBP and not worth to spend the extra money)

Flights to and from Scotland and Newcastle cancelled until 6pm / Tuesday
 

Last update: Tuesday 24 May 2011, 08:30 hours / 08:30 AM (Amsterdam time)

Volcanic eruption from Iceland's Grimsvötn
Since Saturday the Grimsvotn volcano in Iceland is active. The Vocanic Ash Authority expects the cloud of volcanic ash to be arriving over Scotland and Northern England.

Based on this info and on own expertise KLM has decided to adjust flight operations for Tuesday morning 24 May 2011.

The following flights to and from Aberdeen, Glasgow, Edinburgh and Newcastle will be cancelled for Tuesday 24 May:

to and from Glasgow:
KL 1470, KL 1473, KL1474, KL1475, KL1476, KL 1477, KL 1478, KL1479 and KL1480
to and from Newcastle:
KL 952, KL 953, KL 954, KL957 and KL958

to and from Aberdeen:
KL 1440, KL 1441, KL 1442, KL 1443, KL 1444, KL1445, KL1446, KL1447 and KL1448

to and from Edinburgh:
KL 1276, KL 1277, KL 1278, KL 1279, KL 1280, KL1281, KL1282, KL1285, KL1286, KL1289 and KL1290

Affected customers will be re-booked and notified by KLM.

KLM expects to operate all other flights as scheduled. KLM is in continuous contact with the relevant authorities and closely monitors the situation. If the situation dictates so action will be taken accordingly.

The Aberdeen airport account on twitter sent the following earlier:

If this is true, I'll take that as a sign that the people are not running around in headless chicken/panic mode like last year but are actually considering how much ash there is expected to be and decide accordingly.

A good sign IMHO.

So far the only airports expected to be affected at all are in Ireland and Scotland. England and Wales are still not affected, neither is the rest of Europe.

I hope it stays that way as I have a flight to a conference in Berlin on Friday...

cheers,
andreas

My mum is scheduled to fly to LHR today and it would appear that most flight have been upgraded to B738/739's.

I presume quite a few people will be going to London and continuing their journey from there up north.

Gajan

A piece of information regarding the situation:
- most of the airlines are cancelling flights in order to avoid planes parked/blocked in the cloud (especially those performing night stops in outstations) ;
- northern ETOPS tracks + polar routes are partially hit by the ash cloud, so flights plans for aircrafts have been adapted. For example, a CDG-LAX flight will use a southern route ;
- all authorities and airlines are extremely focused on the situation, more news is expected around 1600Z.

I have been using the UK Met Office site to track the ash cloud:

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/volcano/...natlantic.html

Hmm the ash is pretty low (i.e. <20000ft which would make flying indeed impossible). Hope it continues to the North(west) and stays clear of most of continental Europe.

Thanks! Looking at the predictions, the red 'critical' area is shrinking fast. From the looks of it the whole of Europe will be free of the high density cloud by tomorrow afternoon. Which is great, I have a flight out of AMS on thursday..

Flights to Stavanger and Kristiansand are also cancelled today and some flights tomorrow.

KLM has now also cancelled flights to HAM and Bremen due to closed airspace in Northern-Germany.

Here's another cool site to see the actual concentration at various flightlevels: http://www.weatheronline.co.uk/cgi-a...ANG=en&CLOUD=1

http://www.klm.com/travel/nl_nl/prep...date/index.htm

Just a few cancellations for Germany now, but the rest of the flights is back in business ;-)

Let's hope that they'll get back to normal in the next couple of days.
I understand no big disruption is scheduled for this week-end in AMS...

Word of warning - UK Met Office site
 

It would appar that the link I posted yesterday has not been updated since at least yesterday - so the information is now only of historical value.

However, there is a link to another chart (Eurasia rather than North Atlantic) which IS up to date.

Have just alerted the Met Office to this.

KLM Twitter reports that ALL flights are now back to normal.

Actual concentration?

As far as I know they are still using theoretical modeling, which is enough to send the authorities running for their security blankets, thumbs in mouth.

Johan