Volcanic ash from the Iceland’s Eyjallajokull volcano had kept the airports closed down for over a week, as businesses across the Europe struggled for making contingency plans. Airline industry seems to hit have quite hard this time.
A European air traffic agency stated that about 16,000 of 28,000 operating flights had to cancel on that Friday. Flight ban was due to the considerations about the pilot visibility also due to the failure of jet engines from ash. International Air Transport Association, based in Geneva made a calculation that interruption has cost airline industry as much as $20o million a day. The revenue amount is quite large of course. However, organization further forecasted that costs would increase, as the carriers are to continue rerouting aircraft and take care of all stuck passengers. The concerning prospective revenue, German carrier Lufthansa lost 2.1 percent, British Airways lost 1.2 percent and Air France – KLM lost 1.7 percent.
Financial impact of this volcano needs to be minimized. Government helps using its resources when forces of the nature affect economy on larger scale. Airlines are obviously not expected to bare all losses from the uninsurable closure of the airspace. Moreover, airlines are found to have paid for the bills on hotels and food for all stranded passengers.
Despite of high air industry loss, some other industries have found to be benefiting largely. The holiday makers that are trapped in UK obviously need a place to stay and food to eat while there are still trying hard to find a way back home. This should certainly offset lost revenue from the travelers who are not able to get there. The hoteliers could not have otherwise made such huge profits, thanks to volcanic ash. The travelers were forced to stay back at the hotels, as they had no choice but to stay until some arrangement for made for returning home.
Think of all those standard travelers at Europe who are spending money on food and lodging that otherwise they would not have spent. It surely is a boon to restaurant and hotel industry. It also turned as a glorious time for the taxicab industry. When was it last time that the cab drivers got to earn high fares? The trains, boats, rental cars too rolled high profits. Some hotels have also found tourists extending their stays, as they were unable to get back to their home countries.
However, this ash has had adverse impact on several other industries. However, the flights resumed soon unexpectedly.
Just when travel industry was to expect busy sunny summer day, it simply stopped dead last month when eruption from Eyjafallajokull volcano at Iceland brought the important most Europe’s airports and the air traffic came to a standstill for long six days. It is thought to be the worst of travel disruption that the world has seen before. This eruption brought several adverse impacts on plethora of industries. Most of the industries had adverse effects, while for some it turned out to be a boon. These adverse effects are going to stay for some time now.
