Disruption of air traffic in Europe

The Icelandic volcano Eyjafjallajökull eruption © Boaworm, CC BY 3.0

The disruption of air traffic from 15 to 19 April 2010 over a large part of Europe, due to the volcanic cloud from Iceland, will have serious economic consequences.

This air desert has triggered the cancellation of 102 000 flights worldwide, the immobilization of 6.8 million people in 313 airports and lost earnings of 250 million USD a day for more than 100 European airline companies. Air France-KLM is reporting losses of worth 47 million USD a day.

This chaos has also touched Asian Pacific airliners whose losses amounted to 40 million USD a day.
According to the International Aviation Transport Association (IATA), the crisis as a whole is likely to amount to 1.7 billion USD.

In light of these losses, airliners cannot make recourse to their insurance since the Icelandic volcanic eruption is a case of force majeure. The financial consequences of this chaos can therefore not be covered by insurers.

Passengers whose flights were delayed or cancelled cannot rely on their cancellation policies or travel insurance schemes. The force majeure is excluded from almost all insurance contracts. However, airliners have pledged to refund unused air tickets.