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Volcanic ashes add to European airlines' financial woes

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With airspace over Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) closed for almost three days, major airlines of the region have started to worry that the flight safety issue is aggravating the region's financial pains.

Smoke and steam hangs over the volcano under the Eyjafjallajokull glacier in Iceland, Wednesday April 14, 2010. [Xinhua]

No landing or takeoff was possible over the weekend for civil aviation in most of Central and Eastern Europe that includes Croatia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Serbia, though some flights were managed in Southern Europe over Bulgaria, Greece and Turkey.

None of the flag carriers of Romania, Poland, Hungary or the Czech Republic is in the position to absorb huge losses which only increase the fiscal deficits of these countries, which have no other alternative but to postpone their privatization dreams.

The picture is already grim for the CEE region as the national carriers mostly recorded a more than 30-percent fall in revenues in 2009.

Romania's Transport Secretary of State, Marin Anton, estimated that the painful impact of the volcanic ash cloud may cost the Romanian airlines between 1.8 million and 2 million euros (2.4 million and 2.7 million U.S. dollars) a day in revenue losses.

Romanian state airline Tarom's revenue losses are estimated to reach 1.1 million euros (1.48 million dollars) daily.

The airspace closure forced civil aviation companies to cancel about 590 flights on Romanian airports, affecting 60,000 to 65,000 passengers.

The Romanian authorities expressed earlier this year the intention to sell a stake in Tarom in 2011, but the privatization prospects depend on the company's capacity to generate profits.

Last year, Tarom's losses mounted to about 22 million euros (29.7 million dollars). The company's dream to gain a profit of 4.7 million euros (6.3 million dollars) this year may be shattered by the volcanic eruption in far-away Iceland.

The Hungarian national carrier Malev has announced that it will refund the tickets for passengers who will not agree to re-book the tickets free of charge, but did not elaborate on its revenue losses caused by the ash cloud from Iceland.

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