Icalandair cancels flights due to volcanic eruption

An eruption started in Grímsvötn lakes in Vatnajokull glacier yesterday evening. The eruption is on a 500-800 meter long fissure, or cauldron, according to geophysicist Magnus Tumi at the University of Iceland.

Sources quoted in the local media say this eruption is much more powerful than the infamous eruption in Eyjafjallajokull which took place from March through May last year. This said, it is likely not to cause as much trouble to aviation as the eruption in Eyjafjallajokull.

The asp plume has already risen to 20 km above sea level, 4 km higher than in the Eyjafjalljokull eruption last year. However, the ash is grainier which probably means that it won’t travel as far as the ash from Eyjafjallajokull. Latest reports say the eruption is waning.

Iceland’s international airport in Keflavik, 35 miles from Reykjavik and 200 miles away from the eruption, is closed – some say unnecessarily because there is no ash in the area yet.

The airport’s closure caused Icelandair to cancelled flights to Iceland this afternoon from Amsterdam, Paris, London, Copenhagen, Stockholm, Oslo, Helsinki, Bergen/Stavanger. As a result flights from Iceland to Copenhagen, London, Stockholm, Oslo, Washington, Toronto, New York and Boston are cancelled.

During last year’s eruption flights were redirected to Akureyri airport in the north of Iceland and Icelandair moved its hub to Glasgow in Scotland. No decision of this kind has been made for the present eruption yet.

Everyone in Iceland is safe and there is no immediate threat to human lives.