LONDON — Stranded air travelers waited anxiously and impatiently for more European airports to reopen Monday, as governments faced growing criticism over their seemingly ponderous response to five straight days of flight chaos.
The International Air Transport Association criticized what it called a “lack of leadership” by European governments faced with a shutdown in the skies on an unparalleled scale caused by high-altitude ash billowing from an erupting Icelandic volcano then drifting south and east.
Such was the sense of crisis in London that the British government said it was deploying the Royal Navy to bring people home, as the National Air Traffic Service announced that British airspace, closed since last Thursday, would remain closed until early Tuesday.
Most of Asia’s largest carriers continued to cancel their flights into Europe, adding to the financial cost of the chaos, which one industry group estimated at $2 billion and climbing.
French, German and Dutch airspace also remained closed, although several major airports in southern Europe — notably Rome, Athens and Madrid — were operating. Airports in the Czech Republic were set to open at noon local time, authorities there said, according to the Czech news agency, and news reports said that the neighboring country of Slovakia were allowing flights over the eastern part of the country.
Aviation authorities in Hungary announced they had reopened the country’s airspace for aircraft flying at 24,600 feet or higher.
“We are far enough into this crisis to express our dissatisfaction on how governments have managed it, with no risk assessment, no consultation and no leadership,” said Giovanni Bisignani, the director general and chief executive of the International Air Transport Association. “This crisis is costing airlines at least $200 million a day in lost revenues and the European economy has already suffered billions of dollars in lost business.
“In the face of such dire economic consequences, it is incredible that Europe’s transports ministers have taken five days to organize a first teleconference.”
That ministerial meeting was to take place Monday in Brussels, with some ministers able to participate only by video-conferencing because they were grounded at home.
“The Ash Attack has already affected the travel plans of 8 million passengers in Europe and around the world,” the Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation, a consultancy based in Sydney, said Monday on its Web site. “The total cost for the aviation industry (airlines, airports, suppliers, freight operators, handlers, etc.) could be well over $2 billion.”
Several European airlines, the center said, were already considering emergency layoffs.
Airspace and airports in much of northern and central Europe stayed shut, or offered limited service on Monday and only about one third of flights scheduled for a normal day were expected to operate.
The airport in Vienna, Austria, officially opened at 5 a.m. Monday, although the arrivals and departures board showed that most flights remained canceled. The airport in Stockholm also opened with limited service.
Italian authorities opened the country’s principal northern airports, in Milan and Venice, at 7 a.m., but then closed them again 2 hours later, citing new and ominous weather reports, according to the ANSA news agency. Vito Riggio, the head of the civil aviation authority, said the airports would stay closed until at least 8 a.m. on Tuesday. But airports in Rome and the south of the country were open.
Among the Asian carriers that canceled their flights to Europe on Monday were Cathay Pacific, Qantas, Japan Airlines, Korean Air, Air New Zealand, Thai Airways and China Airlines of Taiwan. Cathay, based in Hong Kong, and Qantas of Australia also canceled several of their Tuesday flights.
Singapore Airlines also canceled all its flights to Europe, except those to Athens and Istanbul. Increasingly desperate airlines — among them Air France, Lufthansa, KLM and Air Berlin — ran test flights over the weekend to show that flying was safe, and they pressed aviation authorities to loosen the flight ban.
Mr. Bisignani told reporters in Paris that he hoped the chaos will lead to a new momentum on discussions about a unified air traffic control system in Europe, known as the Single European Sky, which have been going on for 20 years.
“This is really a failure of Europe,” he said. While Europe has been able to remove borders on the ground, he added, “we haven’t been able to take away the borders in the sky guaranteed personal loan approval.”
“In a couple of weeks, when this situation is resolved, this will be remembered as a very embarrassing episode for Europe,” Mr. Bisignani said, adding that he blamed the current disruptions on European transport ministers.
In its statement on Monday, the International Air Transport Association criticized the region’s decision-making process for closing airspace. “This not an acceptable system, particularly when the consequences for safety and the economy are so large,” Mr. Bisignani, the IATA chief, said of the methodology, which is based on computer models.
Airlines complained that European governments were overreacting to the threat. In a blunt statement Sunday, representatives of Europe’s airlines and airports called for “an immediate reassessment of the present restrictions.”
“It is clear that this is not sustainable,” the European Union’s transport commissioner, Siim Kallas, told reporters in Brussels. “We cannot just wait until this ash cloud dissipates.”
The transportation minister from the Netherlands, Camiel Eurlings, said in an interview Monday with public broadcaster NOS that Europe’s response to the ash cloud had gone too far.
But on Sunday the British transportation secretary, Andrew Adonis, had ruled out any immediate change, saying flights across northern Europe “will not be safe” on Monday.
Europe remained a scene of travel chaos. With airports deserted planes grounded, stranded travelers stormed ports and bus and train stations. London’s St. Pancras train station, where Eurostar trains leave for Paris and Brussels, was packed with people anxious to find a way to Continental Europe.
Prime Minister Gordon Brown said Monday that British authorities would deploy two Royal Navy vessels, including the Ark Royal aircraft carrier, to help bring Britons home.
He spoke after a meeting of the COBRA planning committee, which gathers in times of national emergency. The initials stand for Cabinet Office Briefing Room A.
Britain is particularly isolated because the country is cut off from continental land routes by the English Channel. London’s main airport, Heathrow, is one of the busiest hubs in the world. And with Britain in the throes of political fervor before a national election on May 6, the government’s handling of the crisis will be closely scrutinized by its opponents for missteps, political analysts said.
Mr. Brown said Britain was looking to Spain, where airports are open, as a potential transit point to get Britons home by ferry, road and rail, but he did not say exactly what part the navy vessels would play.
“We have large numbers of travelers who are trapped in Africa and Asia and the main route home at the moment is the airports that are open in Europe and that is in Spain,” Mr. Brown said, according to the Press Association news agency.
Tens of thousands of Britons stranded outside the country include school-teachers and pupils, supposed to be back in their classrooms on Monday after a vacation break, and British soldiers on their way home from Afghanistan by way of a British base in Cyprus.
One group of intrepid Samaritans has already tried to evacuate stranded travelers by dinghy from Calais, France, to Dover, England.
The crisis could wipe out weaker air carriers if it continues much longer, analysts say. Airlines have already suffered losses of $50 billion over the last decade after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the SARS epidemics of 2004, the rise in fuel costs in 2008 and the recession.
Authorities are concerned that if an airplane moves through the ash cloud, which contains high levels of silica, a glasslike dust, the engines could seize or stall. But the airlines that sent up test flights on Sunday said they saw no damage to their planes. Complicating any decisions is the continued eruption of the volcano, Eyjafjallajokull.
While much of northern Europe’s airspace remained closed, the airport in Reykjavik, Iceland’s capital, was still open for business since southern winds were pushing ash away from the small rocky island in the North Atlantic.
Alan Cowell reported from London, Nicola Clark from Paris and Mark McDonald from Hong Kong. Jad Mouawad contributed reporting from New York and Bettina Wassener from Hong Kong.
