There’s something missing in the clear blue skies above our house today, what could it be? Sì, le scie degli aerei! (Yes, aircraft vapor trails!)

Thanks to la polvere vulcanica (volcanic dust), and what now seems to have been an over reaction on behalf of the aviation authorities, we are temporarily able to enjoy i cieli italiani (the Italian skies) as mother nature intended.

Today’s headlines in the Italian newspaper ‘Il Corriere della Sera’ (Monday 19th April):

Compagnie all’attacco. Test fai-da-te nella nube per smentire le autorità. “L’economia bloccata inutilmente”

Companies on the attack. ‘Do it yourself’ tests in the cloud to prove the authorities wrong. “Economy blocked for nothing” read .

‘Lufthansa e Air Berlin, i due maggiori vettori tedeschi, hanno accusato le autorità di controllo di avere chiuso gli spazi aerei sulla base di un pericolo presunto, senza informazioni reali se non quelle venute da una sola fonte computerizzata. E di avere provocato perdite di centinaia di milioni per le compagnie aeree e di miliardi per le economie europee, letteralmente messe a terra’.

Lufthansa and Air Berlin, the two major German carriers, have accused the authorities of having closed the air space on the basis of a presumed danger, without any real information apart from that derived from a single computerized source. They also accuse them of having caused the aviation companies the loss of hundreds of millions (of Euros), and billions (of Euros) for the European economy, which has been literally grounded” (‘messo a terra’ is an expression which, apart from its literal translation of ‘grounded’, also means ‘to go broke’, or ‘bust’).

LA BREVE RIAPERTURA (THE BRIEF RE-OPENING) Here in Italy hope for the thousands of stranded travelers was raised by the brief re-opening of several national airports, the newspaper continues:

– In mattinata, è stato un aereo della compagnia Air One diretto a Catania il primo volo a partire dopo due giorni di stop, alle 7.10, dall’aeroporto di Milano Malpensa. Alla stessa ora un volo Alitalia sempre per il capoluogo etneo è partito dallo scalo di Linate.

– This morning at 7.10 an Air One plane heading for Catania was the first flight to depart after two days of closure, from Milano Malpensa airport. At the same time an Alitalia flight, also bound for Catania (the  main town of the Etna region) departed from the airport of Linate.

However, weary travelers soon had their hopes cruelly crushed by a renewal of the flight ban:

Nel momento dell’annuncio del nuovo stop ai voli l’aeroporto di Malpensa era affollato da migliaia di passeggeri convinti di poter partire in giornata. Code ci sono soprattutto nell’area delle biglietterie del terminal. Riaperti e poi nuovamente chiusi anche gli aeroporti toscani di Pisa e Firenze. Cancellazioni e lunghe file anche a Fiumicino. Nello scalo romano, rabbia e delusione sono gli stati d’animo più diffusi. Alla luce del nuovo stop, un volo è stato bloccato mentre già attendeva l’ok in pista per iniziare la fase di rullaggio.

At the moment when the new ban was announced, Malpensa airport was crowded with thousands of passengers convinced that they would be able to fly today. There are long queues, particularly at the ticket desks. Pisa and Florence airports were also briefly re-opened and then closed again. Cancelations and long queues at Fiumicino (Rome’s main airport). At the Roman airport, anger and disappointment are the most common sentiments. When the new ban took place an aircraft was halted whilst it was already on the runway awaiting the o.k. to take off.

My brother, who lives in Germany, should be flying down from Berlin to Pisa today. At the moments it doesn’t seem very likely that he will arrive! Have any of you experienced disruption due to the flight bans? Do we have any readers in Iceland who could tell us something about the situation there?