Volcano air crisis: Safety first or overkill?
| 10:02 UK time, Monday, 19 April 2010
Nearly 7 million travellers across the world have been affected by the Icelandic volcano ash crisis and airlines are losing $200 million a day.
Even World Have Your Say hasn't escaped it. We're supposed to be broadcasting from Haiti this week but the trip's been postponed. And WHYSer Sheetal, is stuck in New York.
Why has the EU been so slow to deal with it?
EU ministers are meeting by video conference today although people are asking why is has taken 5 days to do this.
They've been slammed by the airlines' trade body. Giovanni Bisignani, from the International Air Transport Association, is scathing about the response to the ash cloud. He told the BBC "This is a European embarrassment and it's a European mess... It took five days to organise a conference call with the ministers of transport."
Safety first?
The authorities insist their response has not been excessive. Diego López Garrido, Spanish Secretary of State for the EU, says "the principle of precaution and safety is the principle that must be followed".
But some airlines are trying to demonstrate that it is safe to fly. Companies in Germany, the Netherlands, France and the UK have been doing their own safety tests, sending jets into or close to the plume of ash and dust. All the flights landed without incident. The planes flew at low altitude, under so-called visual flight rules, in which pilots don't have to rely on instruments.
Or pressure to put profit before safety?
However some airlines are warning they could go bankrupt if restrictions aren't lifted so could their arguments be a case of putting commercial interests before safety?
Would you fly through the ash cloud? Has the response been a sensible safety first approach or has it been overkill?
