Airports Reopen, Safety Debate Lingers

Volcano-Affected Flights Resume Over Much of Europe; Hard-Hit Airlines Seek Financial Help From Governments

Volker Hartmann/AFP/Getty Images

Relatives of flight passengers waved to a Lufthansa plane taking off from Duesseldorf, Germany, on Tuesday.

Planes took to the skies again across much of Europe on Tuesday, despite nagging questions about the safety of flying through a cloud of volcanic ash that left planes grounded for five days.

Airlines and airports, which have taken deep financial hits by the grounding, stepped up calls for financial help from governments.

European terminals, including Paris and Frankfurt, started restoring service early Tuesday. Moving later than some of its continental counterparts, Britain's government late in the day reopened U.K. airports including London's Heathrow, the world's busiest international hub.

The moves followed European regulators' Monday plan to reopen much of the airspace that had been closed since clouds of ash from Iceland's Eyjafjallajökull volcano began interrupting air travel on Thursday. They agreed to divide each country's airspace into three zones—designated no-fly areas, buffer zones around them where flights are restricted, and open airspace where flying is deemed safe.

Flights resumed in part as ash levels appeared to diminish. But Europe's air traffic levels are far from normalized and additional volcano activity could further cloud the issue. Eurocontrol, which coordinates flights across 38 European countries, said almost 50% of flights operated across Europe on Tuesday. Since Saturday, flights had been running at around 30% of normal levels and more than 95,000 flights had been canceled, Eurocontrol said.

Even as airports reopened, a debate swirled about the safety of flying without more extensive analysis of the risks, as it appeared that governments were operating without consistent international guidelines based on solid data.

"What's missing is some sort of standard, based on science, that gives an indication of a safe level of volcanic ash," said Bill Voss, president of the Flight Safety Foundation, a global nonprofit organization. "Lacking that, we're going to be trapped in a difficult debate."

Airlines, several of which in recent days have probed atmospheric conditions in test flights and said they found no problems, said they will fly only where conditions were deemed safe by national governments.

A spokesman for the U.K. Civil Aviation Authority said the U.K. had delayed opening its airports because of guidelines from regulators and manufacturers that gave engines no tolerance for volcanic dust. After consultations within the industry, the zero-tolerance bar was relaxed, provided conditions, such as frequent engine inspections, were met.

Pressure to restart flights had been intense. More than eight million passengers have been affected and up to 313 airports closed, according to the Airports Council International Europe, a trade group in Brussels. Airline analysts estimate that European airlines' profits—already expected to be negative this year— are being reduced by more than $100 million each day. European airports have collectively lost roughly €200 million ($270 million), the Airports Council said.

Three airline associations representing dozens of European carriers called on governments and EU officials to "give a firm commitment to support airlines affected by the crisis." The associations noted that governments had closed airspace, and that European Union passenger-protection rules force carriers to provide food and communications to stranded passengers already in transit, at great expense.

"Airlines need further support to assist them with this huge task," said the statement from the European Low Fares Airline Association, the European Regions Airline Association and the International Air Carrier Association. "European governments cannot shirk their responsibility to passengers affected by their decision."

Some safety experts said pressure from hard-hit airlines and stranded passengers had prompted regulators to venture into uncharted territory with respect to the ash.

In the past, the key was simply to avoid ash plumes. New jetliner models were never subjected to ash as part of their certification tests and no international standards and few operational safeguards were developed, government and industry experts say.

That strategy worked because most eruptions tended to be local events, spewing particles into the air relatively close to isolated sites.

The volcano in Iceland didn't fit the typical pattern. The eruption occurred beneath a glacier, producing greater-than-usual amounts of steam that propelled ash higher into the atmosphere. Its smaller-than-usual particles carried for longer distances. Scientists are still developing reliable methods for measuring the spread of such plumes.

While the impact of different-sized particles hasn't been fully researched, experts apparently persuaded European regulators that smaller ash particles pose less of an imminent hazard to engines than larger ones.

European regulators and airlines consulted with the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration, Boeing Co. and Airbus, a unit of European Aeronautic Defence & Space Co. But inside the FAA, which has avoided taking a public stand, a fair amount of concern and skepticism remains about the scientific and engineering data backing the resumption of flights, say industry and government officials.

About half of grounded employees of multinational companies, meanwhile, face the prospect of being forced to take their ground time as part of annual leave, or could suffer a pay cut. According to a survey of human resources directors from over 600 multinational employers, conducted by Ochre House, 27% of employers were intending to count the time off as part of holiday entitlement and 23% were planning to split the time with employees, paying them for half of the days lost. Some 51% were planning to pay employees for days lost.

Peter Mooney of Employment Law Advisory Services in London said the law firm has been "inundated with queries" from companies wanting to know their rights on making staff redundant and deducting wages from stranded employees. "One of our clients, a car-hire firm at an airport in the South of England, asked if they were within their rights to lay a staff member off as a direct result of this crisis. The answer was yes, they were absolutely within their rights," he said, saying companies could cite a downturn in sales.

European airlines' calls for financial support echoed fierce lobbying by the U.S. airline industry in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Congress approved a $15 billion support package less than two weeks later, with many airlines claiming they faced bankruptcy after U.S. airspace was closed for three days.

Citing that post-9/11 aid, British Airways PLC and easyJet PLC said they were talking to the U.K. government about possible help. Air France-KLM's Dutch unit, Belgium-based Brussels Airlines, Poland's LOT Polish Airlines and Air Berlin PLC, Germany's second-largest airline, also said they will look at requesting aid once they had dealt with the immediate effects of the crisis.

Financially strong Irish budget carrier Ryanair Holdings PLC said Tuesday it expected a €6 million hit to its projected net profits of €310 million this year from the closure. But it said it opposed government intervention. "We do not feel state aid is warranted," said a Ryanair spokesman. However, he called for a re-examination of rules that require airlines to cover the cost of caring for stranded passengers.

The European Union's executive body, the European Commission, said Monday it would consider updating state-aid rules in the wake of the eruption to provide additional detail about how airlines affected by flight cancellations can benefit from national government help. However, a spokeswoman said Tuesday the commission hadn't had any application for state aid from member states yet.

The impact of the European flight ban continued to ripple through segments of the global economy, interrupting supply chains, spurring a boom in videoconferencing sales and delaying mail.

Nissan Motor Co. said Tuesday it had suspended part of its domestic production lines because it was unable to import pneumatic sensors from Ireland, which are used in three models that Nissan exports to the U.S. Germany's BMW AG said Tuesday that the ban would delay production at three plants in Germany and one in Greenville, N.C., affecting more than 7,000 vehicles, because it had run out of certain electrical components.

Communication business said they were thriving. Skype said calls were up, although it didn't specify by how much. British Telecommunications PLC said demand for teleconferencing had gone up 35% since the volcano erupted.

Companies that ship freight by air began restoring limited service between Europe and the U.S. and Asia on Monday night. "Where we get our leeway is that we fly in the dead of the night, and most passenger airlines don't want to do that," said Norman Black, the spokesman for United Parcel Service Inc.

UPS is also able to be flexible with where it lands, because it has a ground service that can truck packages from any airport to other parts in Europe. The company's Cologne, Germany, hub is now open only intermittently because of the ash cloud, Mr. Black said. Planes that can't get into Cologne are being rerouted to Paris. The company has also used the Madrid airport. "We're going to use any airports we can on the continent to keep things moving," he said.

FedEx Corp. restarted limited service of air shipping at Charles de Gaulle Airport on Monday night, with one flight leaving Paris daily for Memphis, Tenn., and seven flights leaving the U.S. for Paris.

FedEx is also flying shipments from Asia and the Middle East to Paris. It said it is asking customers with parcels requiring special attention—such as temperature control—to hold those shipments until the company resumes a normal flight schedule.

The U.S. Postal Service is experiencing delays in getting mail to some European destinations, said spokesman Dave Lewin. "We've suspended the guarantee for express mail international to Spain, the U.K. and France. It's a major service disruption."

—John Miller, Javier Espinoza and Jennifer Levitz contributed to this article.

Write to Daniel Michaels at daniel.michaels@wsj.com, Steve McGrath at steve.mcgrath@dowjones.com and Andy Pasztor at andy.pasztor@wsj.கம

By DANIEL MICHAELS, STEVE MCGRATH and ANDY PASZTOR