Finding the latest information on Volcano Ash Cloud travel disruption

With a new round of ash cloud inspired travel disruptions over the weekend, and some flights to be caught this week, I wanted to try to find a place where you could find out which airports are affected from the volcano fall out. With more possible volcanic activity to come, I assumed there would be a good site that gave me some up to date information bout airport closures, flight delays and forecasts.

Iceland Volcanoes and Tectonic Plates

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Easyjet was my first port of call, stunningly useless so I tried the Met Office Web site.

The Met Office site was equally useless as far as travel was concerned. Their most ‘timely advice’ was over 27 hours old but they did note that all decisions about flight restrictions were made by the Civil Aviation Authority.

At the CAA website, as at 12.30 on Monday 10th May, the most recent information about the ash cloud was released on 5th May and, ‘hope that no restrictions will be necessary.’ They also suggested looking at the NATS site.

USEFUL

The National Air Traffic Service has a brief update on their home page that probably gives the best macro view of what is happening: http://www.nats.co.uk/ Note: This does not include information about individual airports.

The BBC Travel News section has a list of UK airports that are affected including an overview of the types of flights that will be affected – Transatlantic, domestic, Continental etc. Note: In each case, it suggests that you check with your airline before you do anything.

If anyone knows of any other useful sites, please let me know. Meanwhile I am going to Edinburgh tomorrow on the train. Choo choo.