Ash chaos could be avoided this weekend

It looks like travellers will be spared travel chaos this bank holiday weekend.

Travel Insurance News - 26/05/2011

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The volcanic eruption in Iceland has subsided enough that major travel chaos could well be avoided over the upcoming bank holiday weekend. Initial forecasts had indicated that most of the UK would be hit with a thick cloud of volcanic ash but the latest indications are that we will be spared any major aviation problems this Friday and Saturday.

Britain’s Met Office has issued a fresh map indicating the extent of an Icelandic ash cloud. According to the new map, the UK will be spared a repeat of last year’s chaos.

The Met Office said that conditions regarding the volcanic ash cloud were steadily improving, so it is looking likely the amount of ash in British and European air space should be minimal. This will be a huge relief to large numbers of British holidaymakers scheduled to fly abroad over the next couple of days.

Travel panic was triggered just a day earlier, when the initial ash map showed all of Britain being covered by a dense cloud of smoke and ash at altitudes exceeding 35,000 feet in the middle of the day on Friday. That would have meant the UK would be dealing with the kind of disruption seen last year.

On Tuesday, some 500 flights were cancelled because of the ash cloud in the skies above Scotland. Had the threat continued to spread, many more flights would have been affected.

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