Airline shares dived today in fright at the threat to traffic from an Icelandic volcanic ash cloud closing the skies over Europe, a year after European airlines were hit by month-long ash chaos.
Irish airline stocks slumped. Ryanair closed down 5.3% today, and Aer Lingus closed down 7.1%.
Iceland's Grimsvoetn volcano began erupting late on Saturday. Ash from the eruption is expected to reach Scotland tomorrow, and might reach France and Spain on Thursday.
The Irish Aviation Authority said flights to and from Ireland could be disrupted later in the week but did not expect problems in the next 48 hours.
According to the Volcanic Ash Advisory Centre in London, depending on the continuing eruption of the volcano and the meteorological conditions, there is a risk that some ash cloud may reach parts of northern Europe in the next 24 hours.
The VAAC said the situation was being monitored closely.
It said no disruption to flights is anticipated in Irish airspace for the next 24 hours.
In April 2010 Iceland's Eyjafjoell volcano erupted, spewing a massive cloud of ash that caused the planet's biggest airspace shutdown since World War II with more than 100,000 flights cancelled and eight million passengers stranded.
The costs in terms of lost revenue and compensation to passengers hit the airline industry hard, particularly in Europe.
Iceland closed its main airport over the weekend, Denmark has since closed some airspace over Greenland, and Norway said it would cancel flights to the country's Arctic archipelago of Svalbard.
Concerns that the ash could damage aircraft engines led authorities to cancel flights as a precaution.
However, the chief executive of Ryanair forecast that there would be no large-scale closure of airspace from volcanic ash.
'I think the widescale airspace shutdowns won't be repeated,' said Michael O'Leary, who was highly critical of the authorities' response last year.
'What they tend to do is to let the airlines continue to fly. We do inspections every time there is a landing,' he said. 'If we notice any dust on the aircraft then we take appropriate procedures', he added.
So far European airlines and airports have not begun taking special measures.
'We not concerned at the moment by the volcanic eruption in Island,' a Lufthansa spokeswoman said.
'Our north Atlantic flights are making a slight detour when they fly through the area, but that is not causing delays and we have not cancelled any flights for the moment,' she added.
She said that although Lufthansa had not taken any special measures, the airline was always ready to react to a change in flying conditions.
