Iceland’s most active volcano began erupting over the weekend, sending billows of ash up to 12 miles into the air on Sunday, and prompting the island nation to close its main international airport to commercial air traffic as a precaution, aviation officials said.

The Icelandic authorities said that as of 8:30 a.m. local time, Reykjavík-Keflavik International Airport was closed to all inbound and outbound air traffic.

A high-altitude ash cloud was " covering up all of Iceland,” said Hjordís Gudmundsdottir, a spokeswoman for Isavia, Iceland’s air navigation services provider. "We are trying to identify some holes in it and to use them to allow some flights, but it’s not looking very good right now.”

Overnight, Iceland’s civil protection agency said it had imposed a no-fly zone of 120 nautical miles around the Grimsvötn volcano in southeast Iceland.

Meteorologists said the prevailing winds were expected to blow the volcanic ash in a generally westward direction through the rest of this week — most likely avoiding a repeat of the widespread shutdowns of European airports that grounded more than 100,000 flights in April and May 2010.

Eurocontrol, the Brussels-based agency that coordinates air traffic management across the region, said it was monitoring the situation but it appeared there would be no wider threat to trans-Atlantic or European air travel at least for the next 24 hours.

By Sunday afternoon, Iceland’s three other international airports were also closed to most commercial flights, Ms. Gudmundsdottir of Isavia said.

Iceland’s Met Office weather agency reported heavy ash fall near the volcano itself. But weather conditions and visibility in and around Reykjavík were still good, Ms. Gudmundsdottir said, allowing for some aircraft to operate at lower elevations under so-called visual flight rules.

Iceland officials said roughly 30 arrivals and departures had originally been scheduled at Keflavik airport for Sunday.

Grimsvötn, a volcano of 1,725 meters, is located beneath an uninhabited icecap, Vatnajokull, in southeast Iceland.

Iceland’s civil protection agency said the volcano began erupting Saturday. The authorities have closed the main road to the eruption site and advised people living near the volcano to stay indoors or, if they must go outside, to wear protective masks and goggles.

Grimsvötn is one of the most active volcanoes in Iceland, with at least 60 eruptions over the past 800 years. Past eruptions, most recently in 1983 and 1998, have been relatively small, however, and have not posed a direct threat to the population.

Iceland’s Eyjafjallajökull volcano, one of the island’s largest, erupted violently in April 2010 and sent numerous bursts of ash into the high into the atmosphere for several weeks, disrupting air traffic in Northern Europe, with ripple effects far beyond. The aviation authorities in dozens of European countries moved quickly to close their airspace and ground airplanes in order to prevent possible damage to jet engines.

But due to limited information about what levels of ash density were considered to be safe, the authorities were slow to re-open their airspace — resulting in the worst peacetime air travel disruption in history that cost airlines hundreds of millions of dollars.

European aviation regulators have since taken a series of steps to better coordinate their response to volcanic eruptions.

In April, Eurocontrol, the European Aviation Safety Agency and the International Civil Aviation Organization staged a two-day joint exercise with more than 70 airlines and more than a dozen air traffic control bodies to test their updated procedures.

The exercise, which in fact simulated a significant ash cloud event from the Grimsvötn volcano, determined that more than 70 percent of scheduled European flights would have been able to take off as scheduled under the new procedures — three times more than during the Eyjafjallajökull eruption.By NICOLA CLARKPublished: May 22, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/23/world/europe/23volcano.html?_r=1

DUBAI — Flydubai on Wednesday said that it will hire 600 pilots over the next five years to meet the demands of its growing fleet and rapidly expanding route network.The low-cost carrier, which already has over 200 pilots, will recruit another 600 by 2016, its top official said.“We are recruiting pilots of all type ratings aggressively to ensure we will have the staff to meet our operational requirements,” Ghaith Al Ghaith, Chief Executive Officer of flydubai, said in an e-mail statement to Khaleej Times.The Dubai-based airline currently operates a fleet of 16 Boeing 737-800 NG aircraft. It placed an order for 50 Boeing planes in 2008, the last of which is due to be delivered in 2016.“Flydubai’s growth has been faster than anything that has previously been seen in the GCC, but by the same token, the airline has not over-reached its own capabilities or ambitions. It has cherry-picked a number of popular destinations that, despite recent political events, has seen strong demand, particularly to places like Lebanon and Syria and this growth is destined to continue unabated,” said Saj Ahmad, Chief Analyst at FBE Aerospace, London.Al Ghaith said flydubai is the world’s fastest growing start-up airline and it would recruit the best pilots from around the world. The airline announced thrice-a-week flights between Dubai and south Indian city Hyderabad this week. The service will become operational from June 11 and it would be the airline’s 37th destination and second city in India after Lucknow. “Flydubai is possibly the world’s fastest growing start-up airline ever, which, along with being based in one of the world’s most exciting cities, has helped us attract some of the best pilots,” Al Ghaith said.Government-owned flydubai started commercial flights in 2009 and competes with other domestic low-cost carrier Air Arabia and regional competitor Jazeera Airways from Kuwait. Last year, Dubai announced plans to more than double flydubai’s capital to 500 million dirhams ($136 million). Ahmad said flydubai has silenced those critics who wrongly claimed that there was no market for a new low-cost airline and equally silenced those who claimed that there was already too much capacity in the GCC.“On both counts, flydubai has proven those rose-tinted critics very wrong indeed. That is why, within the next 18 months, it will not only overtake rival Air Arabia as the biggest low-cost airline in the GCC, but it will almost certainly match, if not beat Air Arabia in the total amount of cities that it serves.”In reply to a question, Ahmad said flydubai hiring of pilots will not impact the market as it only operates 737-800s and no other low-cost airline or Emirates and Etihad operate those jets in and around the GCC. He said flydubai’s main competitors like Air Arabia, NAS Air and Jazeera Airways all operate Airbus A320s and the market is wide open for the airline.“There won’t be any pressure on demand,” he said adding that the airline can snare some of the best pilots from the USA, Europe and Asia — home to other big 737 customers that may well be struggling in the wake of rising fuel prices and competition.“Flydubai represents a great way for some pilots to ply their trade in a new and fast growing market. Flydubai has a virtual monopoly with its 737s in the GCC so it will continue to attract pilots as it grows,” Ahmad added.In reply to another question, he said Emirates and Etihad are competing for more 777 pilots as these airlines grow those fleets so flydubai has very little if any overlap in demand to worry about.By:- Muzaffar Rizvihttp://www.khaleejtimes.com/

WASHINGTON -(Dow Jones)- Air Force One missed an approach landing Wednesday in Connecticut with President Barack Obama aboard due to low visibility, but the plane landed safely on a second attempt, according to press reports released by the White House.

President Obama was en route to Connecticut to speak at the commencement ceremony at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy. Low visibility around Bradley International Airport in Connecticut resulted in the missed approach. Air Force One landed safely on the second attempt.

"The pilot was in the process of landing but due to weather the pilot decided to circle around and then landed the plane, this is a standard and safe procedure," White House spokesman Nick Shapiro told reporters traveling with the president.

In April, an air-traffic controller's error in April caused First Lady Michelle Obama's to abandon its approach to Andrews because it flew too close behind a larger Air Force C-17 cargo jet that was also landing. The Federal Aviation Administration said neither plane was in danger.

That incident caused FAA to change rules for flights carrying First Lady Michelle Obama or Vice President Joe Biden near Washington. These flights must now be monitored by an air-traffic control supervisor rather than a line controller.

Separately, the White House said Wednesday Obama would head to the headquarters of the Central Intelligence Agency on Friday to thank them for their work in fighting terrorism. His trip to the CIA headquarters in Virginia comes just weeks after U.S. commandoes killed Osama bin Laden in a secret raid in Pakistan.

-By Jared A. Favole, Dow Jones Newswires; 202-862-9256; jared.favole@ dowjones.com