VOLCANO FLIGHT CHAOS
Major Swedish airports reopen
Arlanda and Landvetter and Bromma airports have reopened for air traffic on Monday morning, the Civil Aviation Authority (Luftfartsverket - LFV) has confirmed.
Published: 19 April 2010 07:38 CEST
Updated: 19 April 2010 10:19 CEST
"They are open for all transport north and west, and at high altitudes they are open in all directions," Carl Selling at LFV confirmed.
Stockholm Bromma Airport was forced to close briefly but was later reopened.
The movements of the volcanic ash cloud will determine how long the airports, located in Stockholm and Gothenburg, will remain open. A new forecast will be made at 2pm on Monday with the Swedish meteorological agency, SMHI, hopeful of positive developments.
"It is only the southernmost parts of the country which are getting in particles from the ash cloud," said meteorologist Alexandra Ohlsson at SMHI.
LFV is due to hold a crisis meeting on Monday to discuss the long period of disruption.
"LFV is bleeding and is having a tough time, just like all other companies which have been affected by this," Carl Selling said.
Budget airline Norwegian plans to deploy two extra planes on Monday morning to travel to Malaga to collect stranded passengers headed for Oslo and Stockholm. A first come first served policy will be applied, the airline said in a statement, with competition for seats intense after a long weekend of disruption.
Two extra departures are also planned from Las Palmas during the morning – one to Stockholm and one to Oslo. The same principle applies to the Malaga flights and check-in opens at 8am.
Norwegian's domestic routes and Stockholm-Oslo will also re-open on Monday morning.
Scandinavian airline SAS has however confirmed that almost all its flights would remain grounded on Monday except for flights from the US and a few from Norway.
At midnight on Sunday, Gävle/Söderhamn and Mora opened for flights north and west and from 2am Monday airspace over the Baltic Sea, Småland, Östergötland, Sörmland and Västergötland reopened at high altitude. This means that planes to and from Europe can pass through Swedish airspace.
Planes that take off outside of Europe and have Britain as their destination can land in Spain, according to an agreement between the two countries' prime ministers, reports Spanish radio RNE.
Travellers from Asia, South and North America bound for Britain will then be able to complete their journeys by land or sea, according to the agreement.
Spain's transport minister has also offered their other European colleagues access to Spanish airports which are not affected by the Icelandic ash cloud.
A test flight by British Airways found "no problems" and was able to complete its journey "perfectly", the British airline confirmed on Sunday. The BA test deploying a Boeing 747 last three hours and carried the firm's CEO Willie Walsh onboard.
Air France, KLM and Lufthansa have all previously completed test flights without complications.
TT/The Local [email protected] @thelocalsweden
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'We agree to disagree': Still no progress in marathon SAS strike talks
By lunchtime on Friday, talks between the Scandinavian airline SAS and unions representing striking pilots were still stuck on "difficult issues".
"We agree that we disagree," Roger Klokset, from the Norwegian pilots' union, said at lunchtime outside the headquarters of the Confederation of Swedish Enterprise in Stockholm, where talks are taking place. "We are still working to find a solution, and so long as there is still some point in continuing negotiations, we will do that."
Mats Ruland, a mediator for the Norwegian government, said that there were "still several difficult issues which need to be solved".
At 1pm on Friday, the two sides took a short break from the talks for lunch, after starting at 9am. On Thursday, they negotiated for 15 hours, breaking off at 1am on Friday morning.
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Marianne Hernæs, SAS's negotiator on Friday told journalists she was tired after sitting at the negotiating table long into the night.
"We need to find a model where we can meet in the middle and which can ensure that we pull in the income that we are dependent on," she said.
Klokset said that there was "a good atmosphere" in the talks, and that the unions were sticking together to represent their members.
"I think we've been extremely flexible so far. It's 'out of this world',' said Henrik Thyregod, with the Danish pilots' union.
"This could have been solved back in December if SAS had not made unreasonable demands on the pilots," Klokset added.
The strike, which is now in its 12th day, has cost SAS up to 130m kronor a day, with 2,550 flights cancelled by Thursday, affecting 270,000 passengers.
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