On air: Ash Friday
|09:03 UK time, Friday, 16 April 2010
UPDATE: Visits to bbcnews.com have gone through the roof because of this ash cloud. So we've got four goals on today's show:
- get experts to answer all of your questions about the eruption and the cloud.
- hear the stories of those of you still being affected.
- speak to some of you outside Europe who experience ash fall on a regular basis.
- and discuss the number one talking point online: are the countries of north and west Europe over-reacting?
Here's the original post...
People are talking about a number of things... The awesome power of nature: Kate Ravilious says "Every so often the Earth chooses to remind us that we really aren't in control of this planet".
It's causing the biggest flight chaos since 9/11 and the volcanic ash cloud is now covering parts of Britain, Germany, Norway, Ireland, Sweden, Finland, Belgium, the Netherlands and Russia. It's forecast to drift southeast over northern France, Poland and the Czech Republic before reaching Switzerland, Austria and Hungary.
Brian Flynn, the head of operations at Eurocontrol, which oversees Europe's flight paths, says "The outlook for today is in fact worse". European airlines may cancel half of all flights on Friday, or as many as 15,000 connections, almost double the cancellations of Thursday.
Here's the latest on the volcanic ash cloud that's travelling from Iceland across Europe.
strong>Stranded travellers and airlines are wondering who is going to pay for this.
The Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation (CAPA) says airlines and the six million passengers affected by it will shoulder most of the cost as ''an Act of God, the volcano's impact nullifies insurance claims for cancelled flights''. Two Irish airlines have lost more than 160 million dollars in the stockmarkets and British Airways shares dropped by 1% in the first hour of trading.
Some are sceptical.CookieMonster says "Near clear skies here in Aberdeen.No sign of volcanic ash. An over-reaction perhaps?"
The BBC is getting lots of emails from people either celebrating the lack of planes in the sky, bemoaning the travel delays or reporting the arrival of the ash where they are. Please post your thoughts and experiences here.
