The Grimsvotn volcano in Iceland began erupting on Saturday and as a direct result of this Iceland’s airspace was closed for a period. This event brought into sharp focus the similar event that took place close to a year ago when another Icelandic volcano – Eyjafjallajokull – brought European air travel to a grinding halt for close to five days.

However this will not be the case with the Grimsvotn eruption, Siim Kallas the European Union transport commissioner saying that: “We do not at this stage anticipate widespread airspace closure and prolonged disruption like we saw last year.”

This is due to several factors, one of them being the fact that the ash particles from Grimsvotn are larger than those from Eyjafjallajokull, and this means that they will fall to the ground faster. Also the current prevailing weather patterns mean this ash cloud will stay away from a large area of European airspace.

But more important is the fact that the European aviation and meteorology agencies have learned from last year’s eruption and they now have the tools in place to manage the situation more effectively so that they can calibrate their response much better.

While flights were canceled across Ireland, Scotland, the UK, Norway and Denmark, on Wednesday most UK flights resumed; due to the ash cloud’s movements, mostly northern European countries will be affected and even that won’t come close to what happened in April of 2010. Germany’s northern airspace has been affected to some extent and the authorities decided to close all air traffic in the area.

As it was mentioned earlier most of the European continent will not be affected by airline cancellations especially if you plan to fly into the southern part of Europe.