Uh oh. Remember this time last year when Iceland’s Eyjafjallajökull volcano was causing £130m worth of losses a day for airlines?
Well, bang on time for the rapture, Iceland’s second and most active volcano Grimsvoetn has began erupting:
While those in the know — vulcanolgists we suppose — say the ash is a better sort this time round, and not quite as disruptive, the chance of air travel being suspended again is still relatively high. The UK Met Office has also said that weather effects on the ash movements are harder to predict.
This can be seen in this morning’s reaction in airline stocks.
At the open thus far:
Air-France KLM shares were down 3.3 per cent.
British Airways, a.k.a International Consolidated Airlines Groupshares via its merger with Iberia, shares were down 3.51 per cent.
Easyjet was down 5.43 per cent.
Shares in Ryanair, which also had results on Monday, were down 4.74 per cent.
Shares in Eurotunnel, which benefited a lot last time because of increased traffic, were suprisingly yet to register much of a beneficiary uplift and were trading down 1.14 per cent.
Related links:
How to short a volcano – FT Alphaville
The volcano’s impact on airline fuel hedges, jet storage - FT Alphaville