April 24, 2010
Despite the euphoria that greeted the resumption of flights and the reopening of airspaces across Europe especially, airlines are still grappling with the challenge of airlifting the backlog of passengers that have been stranded across the globe since last week.
The skies over Britain, which was the worst hit, were reopened last Tuesday night after a U-turn over the risk posed by volcanic ash in the air.
However, if indications by scientists were anything to go by, there might be worse volcanic trouble ahead from another mountain in Iceland. All restrictions were lifted and not expected to be re-imposed.
Reports said passengers began arriving back at Heathrow around 10.00 p.m. on Tuesday, but the task of airlifting everyone stranded by the six-day disruption would take many days.
The decision was made after ministers, airlines and aviation officials agreed on the level of volcanic ash through which it was safe to fly. Officials said they had faced an unprecedented situation and imposed the ban so they could gather crucial data.
The situation appeared to have hit hard the Ghanaian market too as most airlines resumed operations just last week. British Airways, Lufthansa, Emirates and KLM were amongst the airlines that recommenced operations.
The airlines had complained about huge losses that the disruption in their operations had caused.
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Ghana International Airlines (GIA) also restarted operations on Wednesday with its first flight from Accra to Gatwick in the United Kingdom, but predicted that the national carrier lost about $500,000 in revenue from the suspension of operations.
Scores of Ghanaians who were returning to their base in Europe especially the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Germany, expressed their frustration at the suspension of flights which some said had affected them economically.
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