European air traffic disrupted by ash spewing from Iceland volcano
04/16/2010
An ash cloud from Iceland volcano causes severe flight disruptions across Europe. At this point in time, most North European airports have shut down, and they are expected to remain closed until further notice.
All flights to and from Europe are affected on all routes and many are already cancelled. Specifically on the trade Far East Westbound, this situation further deteriorates the current tight capacity and leads to additional bottlenecks. For example, some carriers in China have already stopped accepting cargo due to unavailable warehouse space at the airports, and grounded most flights.
As an unfortunate consequence, backlog continues to build up at many origins. As soon as flight operations are back to normal, additional capacity at higher cost will be required to clear backlog. Consequently Airlines are implementing a rate increase with immediate effect and until further notice. Although Panalpina is working on optimizing procurement in the customers' interest, the present situation leaves no alternative but to pass on this rate increase as of today.
