In 1821, the Eyjafjallajokull volcano managed to erupt for more than a year. While transport chiefs rush to find solutions (and test planes) to cope with the cloud of ash drifting across much of northern Europe, the PSFK Team and European friends spent a little time imagining what the impact on business, people and culture would be if Europe became plane free for a whole year.

Here are some of our initial thoughts. Add to them with your thoughts in the comments section.

1. Economy: Just-In-Time becomes Out-Of-Stuff

The hyper-efficient systems that have been built to make Europe tick, work, eat and play would collapse. Governments will have to look at directing local resources to ensure that their populations remain fed and relatively productive.

Stan Stalnaker (Hub Culture): “Most infrastructure is too large and fixed so the result would be paralysis across the board – especially in banking, professional services, manufacturing and tourism. No Fedex, no UPS, no short term freight, and in the cities: food shortages, because a lot of food now sold through major supermarkets, and much high quality restaurant food is flown in daily.”

Diane Verde Nieto (Clownfish): “To date alone the airlines are losing around 130m daily from commercial flights. The cargo industry is worth 2.9 billion in Britain and they are losing around 6.5million a day. (datamonitor) The repercussion of the economic impact will be pretty severe in a global level in many fronts that just the airline business. The lost revenues for business whose production has been on hold, as they might require spare parts or other critical goods can be disastrous.

Gerd Leonhard (Futurist): This would, of course, be quite a disaster as far as economic consequences go, as almost all business transactions are very much tied to meetings of some sort or the other. Europe is definitely not ready for making business work without a substantial amount of air-travel.

2. Food: Shortage before a seasonal and canned diet

Now they can’t rely on planes to fly in many of the fresh foods in Europe, everyone will raid their supermarkets and buy everything off the shelves to stockpile (like they did in the oil crisis) – grocers will need to reconsider their logistics to get local farms (that have managed to stay in existence) to supply local stores. Grocery chains will also look to importing on boats canned food that remains preserved. National diets will revert 50 years.

Stan Stalnaker (Hub Culture): “European agriculture is so highly protected it has remained a force against development, allowing for many small plots and a high amount of generally local food production.”

Uwe Lübbermann (Premium Cola): “Customers throughout the EU would experience a mysterious shortage of pineapple, litchi and mango especially during winter – but, due to less pollution by less planes cruising the sky, european-grown food could make a renaissance.”

3. Green: A better environment for a while

An absence of planes combined with local sourcing may reduce the CO2 in the short-term but people and businesses will be forced to find other ways to survive and that will mean greater car and power-station use.

Stan Stalnaker (Hub Culture): “The eventual move to localization would likely have a net positive carbon effect but it would almost certainly be driven by a large fall in consumption.. In the midterm, I would see localized living on a budget of choice.”

Diane Verde Nieto (Clownfish): “From an environmental perspective, the CO2 emissions has been reduced temporarily, however, it is unsustainable to think about economic prosperity without the airline industry as there is no infrastructure in place to sustain today’s globalized economy.”

4. Transport: A focus on rail and a return to the sea

Europe already has an extensive rail network but its historical development and age doesn’t necessarily make it the natural alternative transport system to aviation. Governments would quickly need to invest in infrastructure to support increased volume. Meanwhile, the ferry businesses currently bringing home stranded Europeans will flourish as they will offer the main way for international travel.

Gerd Leonhard (Futurist): “Trains would, of course, receive a huge amount of government aid to quickly expand their schedules and routes (but probably just end up occurring even worse delays than we already have, today)… if there was a location in Southern Italy or Spain that could still serve as a hub for cross-continental air travel, it would be very likely that 10s of 1000s of people would take the train there to then fly to global destinations. ”

Uwe Lübbermann (Premium Cola): “The Danish, the Swedes and the Norwegians would adapt and become major hubs for sea transport.

5. Travel: An appreciation of the great outdoors, eventually

Tourism would change radically. Britons and Germans will try at first to drive to Spain to take their annual vacation but the gridlock this will cause will result in a behavioral change which will lead to many Europeans spending time appreciating the (less sun-soaked) nature much of which can be reached by rail or ferry.

Stan Stalnaker (Hub Culture): “Major hub revenue events ranging from the Cannes Film Festival, Freize Art Fair, World Travel Mart to Frankfurt Book Fair, the summer tourism season will all be in ashes.”

6. Work: Connected

Confined to our cities, employees will take to the screens to work with the rest of Europe and the world. Business systems and more informal social networks like Facebook will keep business connected in real-time. Behaviors will emerge that mimic the lost habits found in a face to face meeting.

Stan Stalnaker (Hub Culture): “Virtualization would be a middling response for the business community: 3D initiatives like IBM and Avaya’s web.alive, Cisco Telepresence, and other virtual meeting initiatives would help to bridge gaps, and this would certainly be accelerated at lightning speed – not just for the benefit of Europe but for trade links to Asia and North America. Europe already has strong broadband capabilities and a mobile fabric – the next few months would certainly see a rush to virtualized tools at large for the business community.”

Gerd Leonhard (Futurist): “Telepresence, tele-conferencing, virtual meetings and video-conferencing would explode even quicker, as everyone would look for other ways to meet (well, in a way, this is already happening, anyway – Telepresence is a very potent business opportunity)… Many companies may plan for a drastic increase in social media activities, and people would resort to a lot more pro-active self-publishing efforts – the logic being that if you can’t go there you may as well leave your virtual footprints.”

7. Business: Business trips rather than quick visits

Unable to jet in and then jet out, business travelers would maximize their time in a city. Networked hotels with will be sought after and collaborative workspaces for out-of-town visitors will become popular.

8. Africa & The Middle East as business hubs

European businesses will meet their global counterparts in nearby parts of the world where planes can still travel. Cities in northern Africa and the Middle East will become key hubs.

Gerd Leonhard (Futurist): Assuming that some flying would still be feasible, some locations in North Africa and the Middle East may emerge as the new places to meet (Doha, AbuDhabi?). I would also predict that if there was a location in Southern Italy or Spain that could still serve as a hub for cross-continental air travel, it would be very likely that 10s of 1000s of people would take the train there to then fly to global destinations. Maybe Barcelona or so..?

As we said, these are some of our initial thoughts. Add to them with your thoughts in the comments section. And for further contemplation, some of you might be interested in Alain De Botton’s futuristic essay he just wrote about a “World Without Planes“.