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You know what?
I’m fed up with the fat cats in the airline
industry.
They’re always acting all high and mighty,
telling you that you “can’t bring more
than two carry-on items onto the plane,”
or that you “need to wear a mask because
overwhelming scientific evidence says it saves
lives,” or that you “also need to be wearing
pants, sir, please, you’re just embarrassing
yourself.”
You know how they are.
Well, I’ve had enough!
I’m starting my very own airline called
“Half as Planeteresting” and it’s not
going to have any rules, or consistent flight
routes, or even ticket fees, but you’ll
have to listen to a really long advertisement
for CuriosityStream before and after takeoff.
Unfortunately, no airport has agreed to let
us operate there until we follow FAA regulations,
so I’m also starting my own airport: Half
as International Airport.
It’s going to be the perfect airport experience:
no security checkpoints, four miles of moving
walkways, and a Starbucks every six feet.
Oh, also, it’s going to be built directly
next to an active volcano, but look, we’re
just going to have to ignore that and hope
it doesn’t go off.
At least, that strategy worked out for Keflavik
International Airport in Iceland, right?
Sorry, what’s that?
The eruption of a nearby volcano in 2010 disrupted
air travel in Europe for nearly a week and
forced them to move all of their operations
to a foreign country, the logistics of which
were very unique and interesting?
Oh, alright, well I guess that means we’re
just doing a normal Half as Interesting episode
then.
Okay, so, before we get to the planes, we
need to talk about Eyjafjallajökull.
And because my writers know I can’t pronounce
“Eyjafjallajökull,” they’re going to
include “Eyjafjallajökull” in every sentence
for the rest of this script.
Let’s just say it a few times, just for
fun: Eyjafjallajökull, Eyja—alright, well,
I’m firing all my writers.
For now I’m just gonna call the volcano
“island-mountain-glacier,” which is roughly
what it translates to in a language I can
pronounce without being skewered by the 3
incredibly mean Icelanders in my comments
section.
Now, volcanic eruptions aren’t actually
that rare—there are 1,500 or so active volcanoes
on earth, with 31 in Iceland alone, and on
average, one or two of them erupt every single
week.
Some, like the Kilauea volcano in Hawaii,
have been continuously erupting ever since
the Disney Channel launched in 1983—I mean,
I’m not saying that this is nature’s way
of punishing us for creating a television
show called “Dog with a Blog,” but I’m
also not saying that it’s not.
The point is, volcanic eruptions are actually
pretty common, but the eruption of island-mountain-glacier
in 2010 was unique for a few important reasons.
Firstly, the eruption itself actually wasn’t
very big—only a one out of eight on the
volcanic explosivity index—but because it
happened under 200 meters of glacial ice,
the lava cooled very quickly and produced
an enormous cloud of extremely fine, glass-rich
ash.
When exposed to hot plane engines, this type
of ash can heat back up and turn into lava,
which happens to be one of the last substances
you want in your plane engine, beat out only
by “bomb juice” and “live human babies.”
To make matters worse, this horrible glass-lava
ash cloud was released directly into one of
Earth’s four primary jet streams, carrying
the cloud all the way to mainland Europe and
as far as Italy, disrupting not only Europe’s
airspace, but also countless bowls of spaghetti.
Between April 15th and April 23rd, nearly
all commercial air travel in Northern Europe
was cancelled—that’s a little more than
100,000 missed flights, 10 million angry passengers,
and an estimated 30 million unwatched episodes
of “Cake Boss.”
Many travelers were left stranded in foreign
countries—some, like the 200 Bangladeshis
trying to book flights out of Brussels—weren’t
even able to leave the airport if they didn’t
have a visa for the country they were trapped
in.
All told, the airline industry lost about
$1.7 billion dollars during the 1-week shutdown,
making this the largest disruption of air
traffic since World War II.
Ironically, one of the only countries that
didn’t initially experience interruptions
that week was Iceland, since the jet stream
carried the entire cloud across the sea before
it could so much as dust Icelandair’s pristine
fleet of commercial aircraft.
But, much like Menelaus in The Iliad, or Hamlet
in Hamlet, or the Sith in Revenge of the Sith,
the ash cloud got its revenge.
The following week, the wind shifted, freeing
up most of Europe’s airspace and absolutely
hammering Iceland, forcing them to close down
their largest airport, Keflavik International.
Now, they could’ve just gone and sulked
off to their beautiful crystal ice caves to
wait it out, but they didn’t—instead,
in the span of half a day, Icelandair moved
200 staff and 10 planes across the Atlantic
and set up a new hub here, in Glasgow, Scotland.
Now, Iceland’s not technically part of the
European Union, but they are part of the European
Economic Zone, which makes this sort of move
to Scotland possible, or at least until Scotland
leaves the EEA next year and locks all of
those freeloading Icelanders out of their
country.
But, back in 2010, Icelandair was able to
route all of their flights from North America
to Glasgow, and then operated flights to their
various destinations in Europe from there.
That didn’t help passengers who were trying
to get to Iceland, but the majority of Icelandair’s
passengers were on connecting itineraries
to Europe.
With this, Icelandair was able to keep 75%
of their normal air traffic despite having
their main airport shut down.
This, frankly, put the rest of Europe to shame,
who had spent the past week getting around
in buses and even, in some extreme cases,
using video conferencing software to hold
work meetings—good thing we never had to
do that again!
Speaking of catastrophes, the first ever Half
as Interesting Nebula original is releasing
next week.
Now, if you don’t know about Nebula, you’re
missing out, because it is home to all the
big, special projects of your favorite educational
creators, plus all their normal videos early
and ad-free.
Making it even better, you can get access
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For a limited time, for just under $15, you
will get a year of Nebula and CuriosityStream—which
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That’s a year’s worth of entertainment
on two great streaming platforms for the cost
of one overpriced burger.
Plus, you know, a 40-minute HAI original next
week which will be entertaining no matter
if it’s good or not.
Once again, get the best deal in streaming
for just $15 at CuriosityStream.com/HAI.
