For now, outside of Fairbanks International Airport (FAI), it looks like business as usual.
New arrivals walk out into the March weather flanked by suitcases, or with duffel bags looped over their shoulders, before tossing the luggage into the trunks of vehicles and heading out.
Others move in the opposite direction, carrying their bags into the building, where it’s also business as usual – sort of – according to Aaron Danielson, the airport’s division operations manager.
“So what’s kind of fun working in an airport is we are in a constant state of preparedness for the unexpected, whether that be a weather event, an aviation incident, a volcano,” he said.
FAI may have to lean on that preparedness sometime soon. Scientists at the Alaska Volcano Observatory say it’s likely Mt. Spurr will erupt in the coming weeks or months.
Right now, they expect it will resemble the volcano’s 20th-century eruptions, according to observatory geologist Abbey Nastan.
But, she said, guarantees are scarce. Maybe there will be no eruption.
“Maybe there will be a smaller eruption that doesn’t create a big ashcloud,” she said. “There could be a larger eruption than in 1992 or 1953, but again, we think that’s very unlikely.”
Current estimates suggest Southcentral communities would see a maximum quarter-inch of ashfall, Nastan told KUAC Wednesday.
That’s enough to be considered disruptive, but not necessarily dangerous. One of the key disruptions, though, could be for air traffic.
“It can obviously kind of wreak havoc with air traffic because it is very very important that planes do not fly through volcanic ash,” she said.
According to Airport Council International, Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport is among the busiest cargo airports in the world. It ranked fourth in 2023, at 3.4 million tons in cargo landings. Fairbanks International? Not so much. Yet, if necessary, diverted flights originally routed for Anchorage might have to land at the smaller facility further up north.
But Danielson said that’s something the airport is designed to handle.
“It’s not often that we would ever run out of space,” he said.
The grounds at Fairbanks International have 25 parking spaces carriers can use, not counting spots adjacent to the terminal.
“One of our selling points for those cargo carriers, which contributes to making Anchorage so successful, is the diversionary aspects of Fairbanks,” Danielson said.
Instead, it’s the possibility of additional passenger traffic that has Fairbanks staff on their toes. The airport has six gates, one restaurant, a coffee shop, a gift shop and some vending machines. That’s a fraction of the gates and concessions available at the Anchorage facility.
“Having, you know, many people in this building very filled is one thing, having it unexpectedly filled is a whole other [thing],” he said.
That means working with vendors inside the building to make sure there’s adequate staffing and enough food and water to go around. But it also means coordinating with other businesses and organizations in town to build out a community contact list for lodging and other resources that might help stranded passengers.
“[Be]cause depending on how long that event may last, the airlines’ plans to get them back in the air, some of those folks are gonna wanna stay in the building, some are gonna try to find accommodations,” Danielson said.
There’s also a chance that the ashfall reaches the Interior. The if, when, where and how much in that equation correlates with the size of an eruption and how long it lasts, as well as wind speed and direction.
But it is a possibility. During the 1992 eruption of Mt. Spurr, reports came in of between one to two millimeters of ashfall in Denali National Park and Manley Hot Springs.
Nastan, the volcano observatory geologist, also holds up one of the multiple explosions at Mt. Redoubt in late March of 2009 as an example.
“Ashfall was reported at various times in Healy, in Delta Junction, at Eielson. Again, very small amounts of ash, but it was enough that for that entire few days, it was pretty chaotic in terms of air travel,” she said. “There were a lot of cancelled flights.”
While the uncertainty remains, Danielson advises passengers to stay informed about activity at Mt. Spurr, watch for updates from their air carriers in the event of an eruption and be prepared in case delays do happen.
The State of Alaska has also launched an online hub intended to provide centralized access to guidance and real-time updates.