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[peewee]

ALL CLOSED AGAIN !!!

[Stock Lobster]

>>Volcano hits jet fuel prices

Apr 19, 2010 8:08 AM | By Reuters

The European air travel chaos caused by a huge ash cloud from a volcano in Iceland could cut jet fuel demand by nearly two million barrels, traders said on Friday.

The biggest travel disruption since the attacks of September 11 2001 has left thousands of planes parked on runways across Europe.

"Some demand will simply disappear ... there will be some flights that just will not take place," said David Wech, oil analyst at consultancy JBC Energy.

JBC Energy expects European jet fuel consumption to average 1.17-million barrels a day in 2010. Assuming that 80% of Europe's airports are shut for 48 hours, the disruption will snuff out demand for 1.87 million barrels.

With the volcano in Iceland still spewing ash into the air and high-level winds dispersing the plume over Northern Europe, disruptions could last for up to six months, according to volcanologists.

Airlines' shares were hit on Friday with Lufthansa, British Airways, Air Berlin, Air France-KLM, Iberia and Ryanair down between 0.8% and 2.2%.

European jet fuel price spot differentials fell $2.50 a ton on Friday.

But some analysts said flights would eventually resume and the price impact would be minimal. - Reuters


http://www.timeslive.co.za/business/article407364.ece/Volcano-hits-jet-fuel-prices

[Stock Lobster]

>>Air travel crisis deepens as world fears a wider impact

17,000-plus flights canceled in worst global disruption since 9/11 attacks

By Steven Erlanger and Jack Ewing / New York Times News Service
Published: April 18. 2010 4:00AM PST

PARIS — As an increasingly large part of European airspace was shut down for the third day Saturday and the towering fountain of ash from an Icelandic volcano showed no signs of letting up, questions about the long-term impact of the eruption were being raised in a continent trying to recover from recession.

With airports closed from Ireland to Ukraine, officials expressed hope that some air travel could resume today or possibly Monday, but the workings of Iceland’s volcano were too mysterious to make rational predictions about it. Winds pushed the particulate ash farther south and east Saturday, as far as northern Italy.

More than 17,000 flights were canceled Saturday, and travelers scrambled to find accommodation or land routes home during what is already the worst disruption in international air travel since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, when all air travel in and out of the United States was halted for three days.

While the closing of the airways has already laid waste to the immediate plans and business of industry, the arts and world leaders, the possibility that it could drag on for days if not weeks, is raising concerns about the longer- term consequences for public health, military operations and the world economy.

Economic damage

The disaster is estimated to be costing airlines $200 million a day, but the economic damage will roll through to farms, retail establishments and nearly any other business that depends on air cargo shipments. Fresh produce will spoil, and supermarkets in Europe, used to year-round supplies, will begin to run out.

But unless flights are disrupted for weeks, threatening factories’ supply chains, economists do not think the crisis will significantly affect gross domestic product. “If it really drags on another week, that could be really serious,” said Peter Westaway, chief economist for Europe at Nomura investment bank. The air travel shutdown could affect productivity, he said, if hundreds of thousands of people miss work or are not able to do business because they are stuck in limbo somewhere.

He would know. He was speaking by cell phone from Tokyo, where he was watching British soccer on a barroom TV at 3 a.m. and waiting for news of when he might be able to get back to his office in London.

“We don’t understand how interconnected we are until you can’t do it any more,” he said.

A breakdown in air cargo shipments into the largest cities in Europe, including London, Paris and Berlin, left supermarkets warning of looming shortages of fresh produce. The groundings meant fruit from Africa and South America was rotting in crates in their countries of origin.

Military operations

The shutdown has also affected U.S. military operations. Military supplies for operations in Afghanistan have been disrupted, and a spokeswoman for the Pentagon said that all medical evacuation flights from Iraq and Afghanistan to Germany, where most injured soldiers are typically treated, were being diverted directly to Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland.

Within the European Command, some routine resupply missions and movement of personnel missions have been diverted or delayed, she said.

Health considerations

The World Health Organization issued an advisory saying that as long as the ash remains in the upper atmosphere, there is not likely to be increased health risk. So far, analysis of the ash shows that about a quarter of the particles are smaller than 10 microns, making them more dangerous because they can penetrate more deeply into the lungs, WHO said.

In Britain, where a layer of fine dust is already covering large areas of the country, the authorities are advising those with respiratory problems to stay indoors or wear masks out of doors. But experts said most people had no reason to be alarmed. “The bottom line,” said Dr. Ronald Crystal, chief of pulmonology at New York Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Hospital, “is there’s no long-term health effect from volcanic ash.”

Travel

Europe’s three largest airports — London Heathrow, Frankfurt and Paris-Charles de Gaulle — were all shut Saturday.

Facing days to come under the volcano’s unpredictable, ashy plume, Europeans are looking at temporary airport layoffs and getting creative with flight patterns to try to weather this extraordinary event.

Millions of passengers from airports in New Zealand to San Francisco have had plans foiled or delayed. Some airlines, however, were offering little compensation, leaving cash-strapped travelers to turn a number of international airports into impromptu emergency shelters. Across Europe, meanwhile, authorities were weighing cancellations of championship soccer matches, and heads of state were altering travel plans.

Rail lines were seeing booming business, however, with many adding trains and operating at standing-room-only capacity. Auto rental agencies in Paris were running out of cars, and some taxi companies were scoring enormous cross-national fares.

“We have just arrived home after a 2,000 euro ($2,700) taxi ride from Courchevel in the French Alps,” Michael Gore, of Redditch, England, wrote on the BBC blog about the disruptions. “... We are just relieved to be home.”

Hotels were also cleaning up. Although many are seeing cancellations by guests who never arrived, in most cases those losses have been more than made up for by a captive market of travelers with no place to go.

Political impact

The volcanic ash also scuttled routine diplomacy, an effect most evident in the dwindling guest list of dignitaries planning to attend the state funeral today for President Lech Kaczynski of Poland and his wife, who died recently in a plane crash. On Saturday, at least a dozen delegations canceled plans to attend, including those of President Barack Obama, Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany and Prince Charles of Britain.

European finance ministers, meeting in Madrid, cut short sessions and press conferences to try to get home. Hotel cars were charging $5,600 to drive to Paris, according to Reuters, while journalists were being offered a bus ride to Brussels.

The volcano, meanwhile, continued to defy predictions. Clive Oppenheimer, a volcanologist at the University of Cambridge, said the average span of a volcanic eruption is a month or two. In the case of Iceland’s Eyjafjallajokull volcano, he said, scientists need to know more about how much molten rock is beneath it, but concluded, “We could see intermittent activity over the coming months.”

But Leo Liao, a Hong Kong businessman who was stranded at the Frankfurt airport, was cheerful and philosophical. “It’s a natural issue,” he said. “Never complain. You can’t change this.”

The Associated Press and The Washington Post contributed to this report.
http://www.bendbulletin.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100418/NEWS0107/4180367/0/NEWS01