Volcanic ash: Airlines attack flight ban as chaos goes on

• A would-be flier waits hopefully at a deserted Edinburgh airport yesterday – most UK flights have been cancelled until at least 7pm today Picture: Jayne Emsley

The UK flights ban was yesterday extended until at least 7pm tonight, with some airlines cancelling all flights until Wednesday lunchtime.

As most of Europe remained paralysed, tens of thousands of Scots were still stranded overseas as schools and businesses prepare to return from the Easter holidays.

Criticism of aviation authorities by airlines began to mount after test flights in several European countries to assess the safety of flying through the volcanic ash cloud experienced no problems.

Last night a British Airways Boeing 747 flew into Cardiff airport after a successful test flight which lasted almost three hours.

The jumbo jet carrying BA chief Willie Walsh took off from Heathrow airport at 6pm to gauge flight safety. It landed at Cardiff airportat 8:43pm after flying out over the Atlantic Ocean. A BA spokesman said the test results would be examined today.

Meanwhile, the government said last night that the Royal Navy could be used to ferry passengers back to Britain.

Security minister Lord West, a former First Sea Lord said: "We clearly have a reasonable lift capacity within the Royal Navy for lifting people."

Following an 85-minute meeting of ministers at 10 Downing Street last night, Gordon Brown also telephoned Spanish prime minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero to discuss ways that the Spanish could help stranded British travellers return home.

"They agreed that the UK and Spain would work to look at how the capacity in Spain which remains open to flights can be used to help get British people stranded abroad back to the UK," a No 10 spokesman said.

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Experts put the cost of the crisis to the European travel industry so far at more than 1 billion, and there were estimates by European aviation agency Eurocontrol that just 4,000 flights entered European airspace yesterday, compared with 24,000 normally.

Airlines have begun to hit out at the airport closures, with some claiming they thought it was safe to fly despite the ash cloud. Dutch carrier KLM said it had flown four planes, without passengers, on test flights over Holland and Germany without suffering any damage.

Steven Verhagen, a KLM pilot and vice-president of the Dutch Airline Pilots Association, said: "With the weather we are encountering now, clear blue skies and obviously no dense ash cloud to be seen, in our opinion there is absolutely no reason to worry about resuming flights.

"We are asking the authorities to really have a good look at the situation, because 100 per cent safety does not exist."

Lufthansa carried out test flights by ten aircraft from Frankfurt and Munich and said post-flight inspections showed no impact on the planes. Spokesman Wolfgang Weber said: "Not the slightest scratch was found on any of the ten planes."

Air Berlin has carried out three test flights. Its chief executive, Joachim Hunold, said: "We are amazed that the results of the test flights done by Lufthansa and Air Berlin have not had any bearing on the decision-making of the air safety authorities."

Transport Secretary Lord Adonis insisted today's meeting of ministers would examine the possibility of allowing some flights to resume, and the results of the test flights.

He said: "As we get more observation data, there will be meetings taking place over the next day to see whether it's possible to find a way through, despite the fact that we still have the ash cloud present and will do for several days longer."

He added that the issue being examined was whether the rule under which if there is any ash present there can be no flights is "appropriate to the ongoing situation" or whether it can be changed.

Brian Flynn, deputy head of operations at Eurocontrol, the European Organisation for the Safety of Air Navigation, said he could understand the frustration of airlines.

However, he added: "The guidelines being followed by all the aviation community are that the safe operation of civilian aircraft can only take place where there is absolutely no risk of potential ash cloud.

"The models being used show currently there is a potential risk. And for that reason the airport closures have been made."

A spokesman for the Met Office in London said: "There are going to be clear areas, but those clear areas are not going to stay in the same place."

The British Airline Pilots' Association also raised questions about the blanket flights ban.

In a statement it said: "This is not the first volcanic eruption that there has been in the world, but it is the first time there has been the closure of so much airspace, for such a prolonged period and with no end in sight."

And David Bentley, a European associate of research group the Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation, criticised the groundings, saying he thought it was an "example of excessive caution".

He said: "The problem is, how do we backtrack now? By taking such draconian action they have sown the seed that it's very dangerous to fly, so who's going to want to?"

However, Chris Yates, aviation security analyst with Jane's Information Group, said it was essential to protect the safety of passengers.

"At the moment there's a volcano going off and very significant levels of ash are being thrown into the atmosphere and it's blanketing us," he said.

"The simple and straight forward rule here is that you can't fly in this stuff.

"Ash contains rock and glass and sand and it can be very, very abrasive and damage window screens and strip paint from metalwork. When sucked into engines, the glass has a tendency to melt and block the fuel intake and the engine shuts down.

"I can understand the anxiety of the airline industry, given that they are collectively losing about 200 million a day, but what price can you put on safety?"

He questioned the benefit of test flights, because even if they experienced safe passage that would not necessarily mean there was no risk to fly.

"It's all well and good to send an aircraft up and do a series of trials, but we are talking about a natural phenomenon here."

He said the key problem was the lack of understanding of what constituted a "safe" concentration of ash, due to a lack of previous research, and urged that this should be remedied.