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The European Regulatory Response to the Volcanic Ash Crisis between Fragmentation and Integration

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Alberto Alemanno
Alberto Alemanno*
Affiliation:
HEC Paris. Comments are welcome and should be sent to alemanno@hec.fr
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Extract

More than twenty years after the EU eliminated its internal land borders, the Union still lacks an integrated airspace. This seems to be the most immediate regulatory lesson of the recent volcanic ash crisis. Yet more research is needed before establishing its net effects. In this brief report, I will provide a first-hand analysis of the regulatory answer developed across Europe in the aftermath of the eruption of the Icelandic volcano Eyjafjallajökull. While reconstructing the unfolding of the events and the procedures followed by the regulators, I will attempt to address some of the questions that I have repeatedly asked myself when stranded in Washington DC between 16 and 25 April 2010. Who did the assessment of the hazard posed by volcanic ash to jetliners? Who was competent to take risk management decisions, such as the controversial flight bans? Is it true that the safe level of volcanic ash was zero? How to explain the shift to a new safety threshold (of 2,000 mg/m3) only five days after the event? Did regulators overact? To what extent did they manage the perceived risk rather than the actual one? At a time when the impact of the volcanic ash cloud crisis is being closely scrutinised by both public authorities and the affected industries, it seems particularly timely to establish what happened during the worst aviation crisis in European history. This report was written one week after the event and relied on a limited number of sources available by 30 April 2010.

Type
Mini-Symposium on the Volcanic Ash Crisis
Information
European Journal of Risk Regulation , Volume 1 , Issue 2 , June 2010 , pp. 101 - 106
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2010

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References

1 At its height on 17–18 April 2010, 17 EU Member States had a full airspace closure and two were partially closed. At the same time, six non-EU States were fully closed.

2 Nine Volcanic Ash Advisory Centres around the world are responsible for advising international aviation of the location and movement of clouds of volcanic ash. They are part of an international system set up by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) called the International Airways Volcano Watch (IAVW). In particular, the London VAAC is responsible for monitoring and forecasting the movement of volcanic ash over the United Kingdom, Iceland and the north-eastern part of the North Atlantic Ocean.

3 Contrary to what was reported by most media, Eurocontrol is an international, not an EU, organisation. It was established in 1960 by Germany, Belgium, France, United Kingdom and Northern Ireland, Luxembourg and the Netherlands through the Eurocontrol International Convention relating to Co-operation for the Safety of Air Navigation signed in Brussels “to strengthen their cooperation in matters of air navigation and in particular to provide for the common organisation of the air traffic services in the upper air space”. This convention entered into force in 1963 and has 38 Member countries, including the European Union.

4 The Numerical Atmospheric-dispersion Modelling Environment (NAME) has evolved into an all-purpose dispersion model capable of predicting the transport, transformation and deposition of a wide class of airborne materials, e.g., nuclear material, volcanic emissions, biomass smoke, chemical spills, foot-and-mouth disease. See ICAO's Manual on Volcanic Ash, Radioactive Material and Toxic Chemical Clouds – Doc 9691.

5 Statement by Giovanni Bisignani, Director general and chief executive of the International Air Transport Association (IATA), on 19 April 2010.

6 ICAO was created in 1944 by the Convention on International Civil Aviation and is headquartered in Montreal, Canada. The guidelines are contained in the Manual on Volcanic Ash, Radioactive Material and Toxic Chemical Clouds – Doc 9691.

7 See section 3.4 Forecasting the Movement of Volcanic Ash Clouds, in ICAO's Manual on Volcanic Ash, Radioactive Material and Toxic Chemical Clouds – Doc 9691.

8 Ibidem, at point 3.4.8.

9 See Volcanic Ash Crisis: Frequently Asked Questions, MEMO/10/143.

10 These procedures were presented by EU Commission Vicepresident Kallas to an extraordinary meeting of Transport Ministers, chaired by Spanish Minister José Blanco, and finally endorsed at the same meeting.

11 Extraordinary meeting of Ministers of Transport, April 19, 2010, available on the Internet at <http://www.consilium.europa.eu/uedocs/cms_data/docs/pressdata/en/trans/113899.pdf>.

12 See Eurocontrol Volcanic Ash Could Timeline, available on the Internet at <http://www.eurocontrol.int/corporate/public/standard_page/volcanic_ash_cloud_chronology.html> (last accessed on April 30, 2010).

13 Extraordinary meeting of Ministers of Transport, 19 April 2010, available on the Internet at <http://www.consilium.europa.eu/uedocs/cms_data/docs/pressdata/en/trans/113899.pdf>.

14 Despite the exceptional circumstances, the EU Commission considers that the Regulation on Air Passengers Rights (EC Regulation 261/2004) remains fully applicable. Yet, it admits that, in the ongoing review of the regulation, it will “take into account the experience of the volcano ash crisis to decide whether improvements are necessary”. See Note d’information de M. Kallas “Conséquences du nuages de cendres générée par l’éruption volcanique survenue en Islande sur le trafic aérien”, SEC(2010) 533, at para. 26.

15 Although at the end of April it was too early to measure the impact, since some traffic that did not occur during the closure of the airspace might have taken place later on, the first figures provided by the sector calculate losses of several hundred million Euros.

16 Under EU law, tour operators are required to provide repatriation of stranded passengers and to refund or offer alternative arrangements to customers who have not started their journey as a result of the European airspace's closure.

17 The advice from the ECDC indicated that the amount of ash likely to come to ground in the aftermath of the eruption was minimal, if any, and impact on health was equally minimal. This position was confirmed by the European Environmental Agency, which concluded that there has been no deterioration of air quality associated with the volcanic ash plume.

18 In accordance with Article 31 of the Regulation (EC) No 178/2002, the Commission asked EFSA to provide by 22 April 2010 scientific assistance on the possible risks for public and animal health via food, including drinking water and feed in case of a significant ash fall, based on the chemical composition of volcanic ash.

19 To know more on volcanic ash and its effects on aviation, see Branningan, V. M., “Alice's Adventures in Volcano Land: The Use and Abuse of Expert Knowledge in Safety Regulation”, 2 European Journal of Risk Regulation (2010), pp. 9–15 Google Scholar. On volcanism and its consequences, see Rampino, M. R., “Super-volcanism and other geophysical processes of catastrophic import”, in Bostrom, N. and Cirkovic, M.M. (eds), Global Catastrophic Risks (Oxford 2008)Google Scholar.

20 “Volcanic Ash and Aviation Safety: Proceedings of the First International Symposium on Volcanic Ash and Aviation Safety”, in Casadevall, Thomas (ed.), US Geological Survey Bulletin 2047 (Seattle 1991), p. iii–iv.Google Scholar

21 The European Air Safety Agency is based in Cologne and employs some 500 professionals from across Europe. It provides expert advice to the EU for drafting new legislation and is in charge of the implementation and monitoring safety rules, including inspections in the Member States as well as of the approval of organisations involved in the design, manufacture and maintenance of aeronautical products.

22 See Note d’information de M. Kallas “Conséquences du nuages de cendres générée par l’éruption volcanique survenue en Islande sur le trafic aérien”, SEC(2010) 533, at para 44.

23 Air Traffic Management (ATM) encompasses the functions required to ensure safe and efficient movement of aircraft during all phases of operations (Air Traffic Services (ATS)), airspace management (ASM) and air traffic flow management (ATFM).

24 Convention on International Civil Aviation, signed in Chicago in 1944.

25 Efforts to shape an EU airspace date back 1996 when the European Commission published a White Paper on Air Traffic Management (“Freeing Europe's Airspace”) and were followed by the 1997 initiative of Eurocontrol members to open up Eurocontrol membership to the European Community.

26 The SES I consists of a Framework Regulation plus three technical regulations on the provision of air navigation services, organisation and use of the airspace and the interoperability of the European air traffic management network. See Regulation (EC) No 549/2004 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 10 March 2004 laying down the framework for the creation of the Single European Sky.

27 EC Regulation 1070/2009.

28 In accordance with Article 8 of the Framework Regulation, the European Commission has issued a mandate to the Eurocontrol Agency for support in the establishment of Functional Airspace Blocks (FABs).

29 See, for example, Sunstein, C., Worst-Case Scenarios (Harvard University Press 2007)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

30 Even in the US, where value has been conceived for long time solely in monetary terms, there is an emerging consensus that both expected value and expected costs should be measured in terms of well-being. Yet, to say the least, people disagree on how to define well-being (or welfare). See, e.g., Revesz, R. and Livermore, M., Retaking Rationality (Oxford: Oxford University Press 2008)Google Scholar; Adler, M. & Posner, E., New Foundations of Cost-Benefit Analysis (Cambridge: Harvard University Press 2006)Google Scholar.

31 See Graham, J.D. and Wiener, J.B., Risk vs. Risk: Tradeoffs in Protecting Health and the Environment (Harvard University Press 1995)Google Scholar.

32 See Note d’information de M. Kallas “Conséquences du nuages de cendres générée par l’éruption volcanique survenue en Islande sur le trafic aérien”, SEC(2010) 533.