Cost Of Ban Counted As Skies Re-Opened

A Stormont Executive Minister has been counting the cost of almost a week of flight cancellations.

NI Enterprise Minister Arlene Foster welcomed news that airspace over Northern Ireland, Scotland and parts of north England had reopened this morning, but said it was a costly week for the economy.

She was speaking last night as limited flights began operating to and from NI airports as airspace restrictions were eased following a volcanic ash cloud from Iceland.

Stranded holidaymakers began arriving back at Belfast International Airport late on Tuesday night with a flight from Lanzarote carrying 180 passengers touching down less than an hour after the six-day ban on airplanes flying was eased.

Today, departures have resumed at Belfast International and will be eased in at the Belfast City Airport throughout the day

Ms Foster said that, while it is not possible to put an exact figure on how much the ban on air travel has cost the Northern Ireland economy, the Minister said its impact had been significant.

"As a result of the disruption to air travel we estimate that to date between £1.3m and £1.8m pounds of direct tourism expenditure may be lost to the Northern Ireland economy," she said.

"The tourism accommodation sector is of course directly impacted by the ability of tourists to get to NI and is also being affected by tourists who were to travel from Great Britain, Europe and America cancelling their bookings.

"Those cancellations equate to a loss, not only in room revenue but also in associated food, beverage and leisure sales," she continued.

"It is estimated 120,000 passengers have been affected by the closure of our airspace but of course behind the figure there are stories of personal hardship and practical difficulties.

"I hope the situation continues to improve and those who are stranded are soon able to return to normality."

This morning, a spokesman for George Best Belfast City Airport said they were "gearing up for full operation" adding that "Belfast City Airport is open for business" on Wednesday. Chief Executive Brian Ambrose said it would take time for services to return to normal.

"The London Heathrow services will resume at noon and then Flybe will be back up running a fairly full programme from 1pm onwards while we are still waiting to get confirmation from Ryanair," he said.

"By this afternoon we should be back to the kind of numbers we're accustomed to at this time of the year and then we'll be starting to work our way through the backlog."

The Irish Aviation Authority said full services might take up to three days to recover from the disruption of the past six days, and it is expected there will be limited flight operations from Dublin airport on Wednesday and Shannon airport has confirmed it will be open on Wednesday and Thursday.

The move comes as the Civil Aviation Authority last night announced new guidelines saying there would be a gradual reintroduction of flights in UK airspace.

A CAA spokeswoman said some no-fly-zones with a higher density of volcanic ash would remain and said the decision had been taken after consultation with the Irish aviation authorities.

The Government Transport Minister Lord Adonis said it would now be up to airlines to bring flight schedules back on track after more than 6.8m passengers had been affected and 63,000 flights have been cancelled since last Thursday.

The flight ban came as experts said the tiny particles of rock, glass and sand contained in the ash cloud from the Eyjafjallajokull volcano system could jam aircraft engines, as has happened in previous incidents of planes flying into plumes of volcanic ash.

See: Airlines Face Huge Task As Ban Ends

(BMcC/GK)