«Родственник» глобалворминга обошелся в миллиарды за неделю

Giovanni Bisignani, chief executive of IATA:
«Based on several key European hubs not operating during the crisis, airlines lost $200 million in revenue per day.  This was a very conservative estimate. Since then the crisis has grown in scale.  During the peak cancellation period, the crises affected 29% of global scheduled flights and 1.2 million passengers per day. This is a much larger crisis for the industry than 9/11 when the US closed its air space for three days.  At the peak of cancellations over the weekend and on Monday (17-19 April), airlines were losing US$400 million in revenues a day. We estimate that cumulative lost revenue through Tuesday is over US$1.7 billion.
Airspace was being closed based on theoretical models, not on facts. Test flights by our members showed that the models were wrong. Test flights showed no irregularities in the engines. That means it is safe to fly.  Our top priority is safety. It is the same priority for governments and for passengers. We are proud that aviation is the safest form of travel.  We achieved this record because we base our decisions on fact, not theoretical fiction».
http://www.iata.org/pressroom/speeches/Pages/2010-04-21.aspx

A separate report by the the Centre for Economics and Business Research, commissioned by price comparison website Kelkoo, has estimated the cost to airlines of the disruptions to be 1.08bn euros ($1.45bn; £942m) over the six days. Mr Bisignani also criticised governments for the haste with which they closed airspace: "[The crisis] is an extraordinary situation exaggerated by a poor decision-making process by national governments.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/8634147.stm

Nigel Lawson:
«IATA, representing the airlines, has condemned the advice as absurd and unnecessarily alarmist, while others have noticed the parallel with the drastic decarbonisation policies promoted by the climate change lobby, similarly based largely on alarmist interpretations of the projections generated by Met Office computer models. What the Met Office/Volcanic Ash Advisory Centre model does is essentially to provide short-term predictions of the extent and location of the clouds of ash. It may well do this (not a very difficult task, after all) pretty accurately. It is clearly a very much simpler and hugely less uncertain task than predicting the likely temperature of the planet a hundred years from now. It is, however, a very limited model, which does not even pretend to predict the intensity of the ash within the cloud, or in different areas of the cloud. Nor, of course, does the VAAC have any knowledge at all of what level of ash intensity is a serious hazard to jet aircraft and what level is not a serious hazard. When tackled about the intensity issue by the BBC, the Met Office spokesman claimed that this was irrelevant, since the policy in force was one of 'zero tolerance'. This, of course, is complete idiocy».
http://thegwpf.org/opinion-pros-a-cons/842-nigel-lawson-volcanic-ash-and-the-precautionary-principle.html