Plans to combat any future aviation volcanic ash cloud crisis must push ahead, an airline pioneering an ash detection system said.

Budget carrier easyJet said last summer that it hoped to have the detection system installed on 12 of its planes by the end of 2010.

But although some progress has been made, the system – known as Avoid (Airborne Volcanic Object Identifier and Detector) – has yet to go on to any passenger aircraft.

EasyJet was one of the many airlines severely hit by last April’s Icelandic ash cloud crisis which saw airports shut and thousands of flights cancelled.

The no-frills carrier is investing £1 million in Avoid, which is the brainchild of scientist Fred Pata, of the Norwegian Institute for Air Research “We call for more support from the rest of the industry for this and other new solutions to deal with the volcanic threat,” easyJet’s head of engineering, Ian Davies said.

EasyJet said the Avoid prototype is ready to test in volcanic ash, but the scheme needs European Aviation Safety Agency approval and also EC financial support. EasyJet is pursuing both these objectives.

The Avoid system is effectively a weather radar for ash. The system comprises infrared technology fitted to aircraft to supply images to pilots and an airline’s flight control centre.

The images will enable pilots to see an ash cloud, up to 60 miles ahead of the aircraft and at altitudes between 5,000 feet and 50,000 feet, allowing them to make adjustments to the plane’s flight path to avoid the cloud. The concept is similar to weather radar which is now standard on commercial airliners. Mr Davies said: “Last winter (2009/10) we were told that the heavy snowfall was a once-in-a-lifetime event and then it happened again 10 months later. We can’t predict exactly when another volcano will erupt and send an ash cloud into European airspace but we can say with certainty that it will happen at some stage.

“Our industry is better prepared today than it was last year but we need to go further.”