The Icelandic airport operator Isavia on Thursday refused to let a plane belonging to Air Berlin take off, due to the bankrupt German airline still owing them money.
Twelve Germans, including seven children, were rescued off Iceland overnight after their sailboat took on water in bad weather and later sank, the coastguard said on Friday.
The closure of German airspace due to the threat from a volcano ash cloud may have been unnecessary, with authorities making an off-the-cuff decision on flimsy data, a media report said on Thursday.
German aviation authorities are implementing special supervision of flights as a cloud of volcanic ash is expected to reach the North Sea coast late on Tuesday.
Six flights to and from Frankfurt airport and Spain were cancelled on Saturday because of another ash-cloud from the Icelandic volcano Eyjafjallajökull.
The giant cloud of volcanic ash disrupting air traffic across Europe has prevented German Chancellor Angela Merkel from getting home on time Friday from her US tour, a government spokesperson said. She will now spend the night in Lisbon.
Europe’s largest airline Lufthansa is not insured against the financial fallout of the volcanic ash cutting off air traffic to much of northern Europe, the company said on Friday.
Some Germans might be known as finicky and demanding travellers, but crisis-hit European countries like Greece and Iceland are targeting Teutonic tourists in hopes of easing their economic woes.
The Christian Social Union, the Bavarian sister party of Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats, has spoken out against Iceland’s entry to the European Union, the <i>Süddeutsche Zeitung</i> reported Saturday.
<b>With Chancellor Angela Merkel telling the nation 2009 is likely to be a hard year for Germany, Roger Boyes, Berlin correspondent for British daily The Times, tries to put the tough times in perspective.</b>
German politicians were fast to blame "Anglo-Saxon" excesses for the financial crisis but the country's own banks, particularly state-owned lenders, have been anything but risk-averse.
