Spain and the European transport commissioner called on Friday for Europe to speed up adoption of a common airspace to improve responses to problems like the volcanic ash cloud, which left millions of passengers stranded, according to Reuters. Europe's airspace is largely under the control of dozens of individual countries, despite years of attempts to unify it. As the ash plume from Iceland stretched over Europe, countries facing notionally similar levels of risk to aircraft opened or closed their airspace in different ways and at different times. At one point, most Dutch and French airspace was open, Germany was open for visual take-off and landing only, and Britain was entirely closed. Tens of thousands of flights were cancelled and millions of people have had their travel disrupted over the last nine days. Spanish Transport Minister Jose Blanco said his country, which holds the rotating EU presidency, had invited EU transport ministers to meet on May 4 in Brussels to discuss new proposals. EU Transport Commissioner Siim Kallas said the crisis made it necessary to speed up EU "single skies" legislation, which was due to come into force in January 2012. The legislation aims to establish cross-border blocks of airspace and a new regulatory framework to meet operational requirements of industry, passengers and regulators, as well as the needs of airlines, instead of national borders. "We need a fast, coordinated European response to such crises," Kallas told reporters in Brussels. "Instead, we have a fragmented patchwork of 27 national airspaces. Without a central regulator, Europe was operating with one hand behind its back." Blanco said he had discussed the proposals with Kallas and European counterparts, and had asked the European Commission to prepare a report. Blanco told reporters that Eurocontrol, a body that coordinates between national air traffic systems, should control European airspace. He also called for an emergency mobility plan to help stranded travellers return home when disasters strike. "This week has shown the need to carry out a joint reflection on improving Europe's mechanisms in reacting to situations like this," Blanco said. The International Air Transport Association estimates that the ash crisis has cost airlines more than $1.7 billion in lost revenues. Flight restrictions began to be lifted after EU transport ministers met to decide a common approach on Monday, three days after the ash eruption began, and after manufacturers and scientists concluded that aircraft could safely fly through low concentrations of ash.
