Huge clouds of volcanic ash coming from Iceland have stranded millions of travelers to and from Europe, leaving hundreds of aircrafts grounded while several airlines catering the destination face huge losses. The cancellation of flights started on Friday when thick dust caused by the eruption of Eyjafjallajokull volcano of Southeast Iceland started to consume the airspace. Of the 16,000 flights cancelled, four were of Vietnam Airlines’ routes to and from France and Germany. On Saturday, the national carrier has called off two of its other flights from the European countries to Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi when Charles de Gaulle and Frankfurt airports have temporarily shut down.

Several other European airports were forced to close as the ash began to spread including London Heathrow, known as the world’s busiest international air hub. Such had urged over 15 other countries to implement their own flight restrictions, resulting to several international airports nearly deserted. AFP branded the occurrence as “the biggest airspace shutdown since World War II”. Indeed, most of the foreign airlines in Vietnam like Qatar Airways and Air France-KLM have already made announcements that they would indefinitely stop catering flights to Europe.

However, some airlines have made special accommodations to their stranded passengers by agreeing to send them to transit destinations where they could wait until the European airports would open and start allowing flights to come in. Thai Airways, for instance, will fly their passengers to Bangkok. But they have made it clear that accommodations and meal expenses would be shouldered by the passengers themselves. Cathay Pacific’s passengers, who are presently stranded in Hong Kong, will have to stay momentarily in the country until flights to Europe are allowed.

Meantime, European tourists who just ended their Vietnam tour, have found themselves unable to leave the country due to the airspace shutdown. With travel plans put into compromise, frustrated tourists and business travelers were made to understand that the massive cloud unleashed by the glacier across the skies have reduced visibility to its minimum and could clog up the aircrafts’ engines. Despite the refunds, free meals and special accommodations to compensate them, the travelers remained weary. As the lifting of flight bans to Europe is still indefinite, many are concerned that if this will drag on much longer, Vietnam’s airline industry, along with others affected with this biggest aviation disruption, would not be able to absorb the huge losses. The uncertainty already dragged airline stocks down; there is no knowing what more impact this eruption could further cause to the affected countries’ airline industry, tourist industry, along with other involved trades.