Update: Volcano strands fish across Europe

Air freight remains at a standstill across northern Europe, as Iceland’s Eyjafjallajökull volcano has been spewing a plume of ash since Wednesday.

More than 63,000 flights had been canceled in 23 European countries through late Sunday, paralyzing the continent’s economy.

However, EuroControl, the European Union’s air traffic agency in Brussels, said that it expects 8,000 to 9,000 flights to take off in European airspace today, compared to 28,000 flights on a typical Monday. That’s approximately 30 percent of the total number of flights, representing half of the continent’s airspace.

Then on Monday night, EuroControl announced that approximately 8,700 flights took off in European airspace on Monday. Approximately 600 trans-Atlantic flights occur daily, 300 in each direction. On Monday, 219 flights arrived in Europe and 233 left Europe, said the agency.

The news came as the United Kingdom, France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany said they would begin to reopen airspace, as the EU moves to ease air travel restrictions.

Fresh seafood is stranded at airports across northern Europe. BBC News reported on Sunday that thousands of pounds of fresh salmon trucked in from Scotland and Norway is stuck at London’s Heathrow International Airport and in danger of rotting.

Icelandic seafood producer HB Grandi reported on Friday that it had 7 metric tons of fresh fish waiting at Keflavík airport.

“The situation is very uncertain at present, to say the least. We are in regular contact with our customers in Europe. If any possibilities appear, we will make full use of them, as long as our customers are happy with any solutions we can come up with,” said Solveig Arna Jóhannesdóttir, HB Grandi’s head of fresh fish sales, in a statement.

“We are keeping our options open,” added Jóhannesdóttir. “One is to ship it by air to whichever airport is most likely to be open and then by road to our customers. But this would need their approval. The problem is that a buyer who wants fresh fish today may well be less interested tomorrow. But the situation is made more complex as we are now getting to the point at which we need to make decisions on how to manage production here and for which markets we should be producing.”

The Norwegian news Web site www.newsinenglish.no reported on Friday that some of the country’s salmon exporters managed to truck fresh seafood to airports in southern Europe that remained open, while others planned to cut production or freeze their fish.

Carriers have reportedly flown several test flights and said that the airspace is safe; volcanic ash is damaging to an aircraft engine. Now airline and airport organizations are calling on EuroControl to reassess the flight restrictions.

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