The Impact of the Ash Cloud Resulting the Eruption of an Icelandic Volcano In 2010 - Essay Example

The Impact of the Ash Cloud Resulting the Eruption of an Icelandic Volcano In 2010 Formation of Ash cloud: Volcanic ash is made of tiny rock particles, which get easily carried through the air. It also has a variety of gases and acids like sulphur di-oxide, carbon di-oxide, hydrochloric acid, ammonia etc. Other elements found in lower concentration include zinc, cadmium and lead. It has been seen that finer ash cloud can travel larger distance and because of larger surface area can carry more water-soluble particles. Also they can stay in the air for longer periods. The eruption in Iceland occurred beneath a glacier and thus melted a large portion of the glacier. The cold caused the lava to cool suddenly and form miniscule particles of glass in the air and got carried in the ash plume (Volcanic ash cloud-latest situation, N.D & Blum, 2010) Reasons which led to the closing of the European airspace: Because of volcanic ash the sensors of planes can get clogged and can coat up the entire plane. Hence the weight of the plane gets increased and the delicate balance is disturbed. Also there is a risk that the plume of the volcano might get clogged and melt due to the enormous heat of the engine of the plane and jam the machinery. Jet planes in the pass had all their four engines cut out when they were trying to pass through volcanic ash. The ash, which came out because of the volcanic eruption in Iceland, was rich in fluorine, of intermediate silica content and the particles were very fine. (Blum, 2010 & QA on the eruption in Eyjafjallajokull, Iceland,  (N.D.) Objectives: This essay concentrates on the recent volcanic eruption, which took place in Iceland and its effect in other parts of the economy. The essay focuses on the type of impact in nature and the positive and negative outcomes in different sectors. Impact on Economy Airlines: A large number of flights got cancelled, or they were routed via another way. Loss of revenue because of this incident was small as far as the tourism industry was concerned but all those people who used to send perishable goods via airplane faced the maximum difficulty. In some cases the ashes have been carried to a far of distance because of strong winds and the ashes have landed in open water bodies like reservoirs etc and in some cases in agricultural land as well. The industry, which has been severely hit because of the volcanic outburst, is the airline industry. The International Air Transport Association (IATA) had estimated that airlines are collectively losing about 130 million pounds per day. This is particularly not a good sign for the airline industry they are expected to lose 1.4 billion pounds this year. Various travel operators like TUI, Europe’s largest tour operator has reported to be losing out about five to six million pounds per day. Overall impact on tourism isn’t likely to be much as some of the passengers will cancel the tickets for travelling while there will be others who will purchase tickets at higher price in case they have been stranded. So this will offset some of the loss of the tourism industry. This volcano although has erupted in Iceland but tourism of other countries like Greece is also likely to be affected. This is because the economy of Greece is largely dependent on tourists visiting that country by air. International trade is less dependent on air transport but all those goods, which are perishable, are generally transported by air like fruits, flowers and vegetables. Because of cancellation of flights to Europe the Kenyan farmers are forced to dump their produce of fresh fruit and flowers meant for European customers and were incurring a daily loss of 3.8 million dollars. This is true for many agricultural based economies. Supermarkets are also likely to face a shortage of supply of fresh vegetables and flowers Many courier companies have also faced delays and disruption of services because of cancellation of flights. Other forms of transport like trains and ship services have witnessed increase in traffic. So much so that the ships were operating at full capacity and had advance bookings. Also they had to employ extra staff to meet the requirements. Even car manufacturing company Nissan had to stop work for a day, as they could not get parts from Iceland. The potential health hazard includes eye and skin irritation. Also respiratory effects for conditions like asthma and lung infection is likely to deteriorate. Other environmental risks include contamination of water bodies and if it rains it is likely that it might be acidic rain. Although the main concern is for cattle, they graze on the grass, which have a high density of fluorine over them and might cause health problems. (Iceland Volcano cloud: The economic impact, 2010 & volcanic ash cloud-latest situation, N.D) The fallout of this type of complete ban on airlines has caused heavy losses to the airline companies. For a period of six days one-lakh flights were cancelled, ten million passengers could not travel, and the aviation industry incurred a loss of 2.5 billion euros. Some of the airline operators wanted to sue the states for not allowing the operations to resume because of stringent safety regulations. Also the airline companies had to settle the claims of the stranded passengers, which included hotel fare for some, and adjustment of flight tickets for the others. This meant more expenditure for their companies, especially for an event, which was beyond their control. Hence they have decided to go to the government for compensation. Also certain steps which were taken soon after the flight service were resumed is that more night flights were incorporated by relaxing the rules so that the stranded passengers could be taken to home as fast as possible. (Volcano Ash: Europe puts pressure on airlines, 2010) Also passengers have complained that getting refunds have proved to be a Herculean task. The air transport users council has said majority of the airlines seem to have huge backlog of claims to be settled. According to the EU rules, European airlines must pay for the hotel bills and food bills, in case the passengers re stranded. BA airlines, UK’s leading airline has confirmed that a large number of claims are yet to be addressed. It is not just that huge revenue loss for the airliners but also the share prices of BA has dropped by1.1 percent, German Lufthansa by 2.1 percent and Air France KLM by 1.7 percent. Biggest hit will be the transatlantic aircrafts and the global players will be in a better position to counter this problem of losing revenue. (Pollock, 2010 & Wardell, 2010) Understanding that the customers are in amidst trouble, banks have given them their helping hand. Banks like Royal Bank of Scotland, Barclays and Santander have agreed to waive off charges brought by exceeding credit limit or delayed payments done on card. They have asked their customers to ring their bank and find out what facility/service the banks have for the stranded customers (Hunter, 2010) Travel agencies and airports: Stranded passengers have tried to find every possible alternative to get to the desired destination. Tour operators are arranging for chartered bus to move from one part of the city to other. Barcelona based coach company Julia Tours had 100 buses, and fifty percent of these coaches were touring all over Europe. Even the luxury cruise Queen Mary 2 has been booked to its full capacity for transatlantic conveyance. Even when the airports have opened and airlines are operating, it has been found that a lot of crew members and airlines are not where they are supposed to be and it will take days to untangle the situation. Car rental services and other transportation: Eurostar the high-speed railway that connects the continent with UK had introduced 41 new trains in the weekend and ferried 210000 passengers, 60000 more than the booked seats. Others who couldn’t manage a ticket tried the ferry-way to cross the channel. These ferries carried jam packed-passengers round the clock. Eurolines, Europe’s leading coach company had seen a dramatic 600 percent rise in traffic between cities like London, Brussels, Dublin, and Amsterdam. The more affluent customers were hiring cabs. Passengers were taken to far off places like Milan from London, a six hundred kilometer distance. Passengers kept on ringing the service operators and one such operator P&O ferries received as many as 400 calls in 15 minutes. (Tsiantar, 2010) The recent discussion about this event seem to suggest that we need sensors for airplanes so that the thickness of ash can be determined and can be understood whether it safe for flying or not. Hence, satellite sensors are needed. The two dimensional pictures received from satellites will help to analyze which one is the normal cloud and which cloud is caused by the ash and the depth of such clouds. (Amos, 2010) Impact on Videoconferencing: Unexpectedly the business travelers found a way out to counter this delay. They opted for videoconferencing. Blackberry and emails were more common ways to communicate with office. Eyenetwork, a video conferencing service provider found a rise of three hundred percent in their videoconferencing inquiries. Even after the crisis was over, their bookings saw thirty percent more than normal. This is primarily because many companies stuck to video-conferencing rather than traveling as it helped them to cut costs. In fact sixty five percent of the first timers had said that they are considering the option of videoconferencing again It’s a irony that flights had be grounded to understand the benefit of video conferencing. The fact which was brought out is that globally business travels account for twenty percent of the emission of carbon di-oxide and it is the third most expensive budget item for many companies. This opportunity also helped the companies and the customers to understand the intricacies and usefulness of video-conferencing. (Sadler, 2010) Similarly an audio conferencing firm in Tel Aviv got definite results; they added eighty corporate clients in one week and majority of them being Israeli clients who couldn’t travel to Europe. Likewise, Cisco came out with discounts for its services to lure in more clients. Similarly one businessman found this to be a right opportunity to market its product i.e. certified natural water and built a marketing campaign around it. (Tsiantar, 2010) Impact on travelers Some of the travelers had a negative influence because of the whole incident and they are very much wary of air-travel because of the hardship they had undergone. They have developed negative attitude towards some of the airlines as they had major problems in getting the refunds and many of them have still now not received any refund. Also during the hour of need they have found that many airlines did not make arrangements for accommodation and food and left them in dark. They will avoid these airlines in future. Impact on nature and climate On a global scale as well as in the context of Iceland, the amount of magma thrown out by the volcano is small. So it won’t cause the temperature to rise. The amount of ash, which went up, is likely to settle soon, so significant cooling effect, because of the layer of ash won’t be in practice. This is because the ashes have reached a height of 7 km, which might be enough for causing disturbance to flights but cannot cause change in climate. Even the amount of carbon-di-oxide released by the volcano is less than the amount of carbon-di-oxide saved by grounding the European airlines Scientists will visit that area where the volcano had erupted and study the impact of volcano in marine life. Conclusion The volcanic eruption in Iceland lasted for six days starting from April 14th 2010. In those days many flights had to be grounded and passengers faced lot of inconvenience. Because of the ashes, flights were disrupted and cancellations of tickets had to be done. Passengers were stranded in the airports and in Iceland. They were put in hotels and getting accommodation was difficult. Airlines are supposed to pay for the bills and because of this they have incurred huge losses. The process of repayment of bills is far from getting over. On the contrary railways, ferries, cars service operators have made a killing. In most of the cases they could not match with the huge rise in demands. Also the teleconferencing and videoconferencing service providers have seen a large surge in business, primarily because the business travelers had to remain connected with their office and carry out important deals. In the process the usefulness of videoconferencing was underlined and they managed to get some loyal customers. References Amos J.(2010), Volcanic ash pushes case for new satellite sensors, retreived on September 16, 2010 from : http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8663884.stm Blum M.(2010), « 6 Question and Answers About the Icelandic Volcanic ash cloud «  Geekdad, retreived on September 16,2010 from : http://www.wired.com/geekdad/2010/04/6-questions-and-answers-about-the-iceland-volcanic-ash-cloud/ Hunter G.(2010), Iceland Volcano: banks offer support to stranded travellers  telegraph.co.uk, retreived on September 16, 2010 from : http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/consumertips/banking/7607922/Iceland-volcano-banks-offer-support-to-stranded-travellers.html Iceland Volcano cloud: The economic impact, (2010)  BBC News, retreived on September 16, 2010 from http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8629623.stm Pollock I.(2010), Volcanic ash : Passengers face repayment delays, BBC News retreived on September 16,2010 from : http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10216236 QA on the éruption in Eyjafjallajokull, Iceland  (N.D.), http://en.vedur.is/earthquakes-and- volcanism/articles/nr/1880 Sadler D.(2010), Videoconferencing interest soars after Iceland Volcano, retreived on September 16, 2010 from : http://connectyourmeetings.com/2010/05/17/videoconferencing-interest-soars-after-iceland-volcano/ Tsiantar D.( 2010),  Volcanic activity : Businesses winning the Iceland Boom,  cnnmoney.com, Retrieved on September 16, 2010 from: http://money.cnn.com/2010/04/22/news/international/volcano_business.fortune/index.htm Volcanic ash Cloud- latest situation   (N.D.), retreived on September 16,2010 from : http://www.sepa.org.uk/about_us/news/2010/volcanic_ash_cloud.aspx Volcano Ash: Europe puts pressure on airlines (2010), BBC News, retreived on September 16,2010 from : http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/8645981.stm Wardell J. (2010),  Volcano is becoming a major business headache,  retreived on September 16, 2010 from : http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/36598435/ns/travel-news/ Read More