Airports in London — including Heathrow, the busiest in Europe — won't reopen until Wednesday at the earliest and forecasters said more delays were possible if the volcanic ash cloud stayed over much of the country.
Still, it was the first day since Iceland's Eyjafjallajokull volcano erupted Wednesday that travelers were given a glimmer of hope. Cheers and applause broke out as flights took off from Paris' Charles de Gaulle Airport, Amsterdam and elsewhere.
German airspace also remained officially closed but 800 planes were allowed to land or take off, all flying at low altitude.
The Eurocontrol air traffic agency in Brussels said it expected a little over half of Europe's 27,500 flights to go ahead Tuesday, a marked improvement over the last few days. The agency predicted close to normal takeoffs by Friday. But with more than 95,000 flights canceled in the last week alone, airlines faced the enormous task of working through the backlog to get passengers where they want to go — a challenge that could take days or even weeks.
Seismic activity at the volcano has increased. Scientists were worried that the activity could trigger an even larger eruption at the nearby Katla volcano, which sits on the massive Myrdalsjokull icecap and has erupted every 80 years or so — the last time in 1918. At eruption at Katla could spark similar travel disruptions, depending on the prevailing winds.
An international pilots group warned of continued danger because of the ash, which drifted over the North Sea and was being pushed back over Britain on Tuesday by shifting north winds. A Eurocontrol volcanic ash map on Tuesday listed the airspace between Iceland, Britain and Ireland as a no-fly zone, along with much of the area around the Baltic Sea. The ash cloud also spread westward from Iceland, toward Greenland and Canada's eastern coastline.
Britain sent a navy ship to Spain to fetch 500 troops coming home from Afghanistan and pick up hundreds of passengers stranded by the chaos. The US government said it has no plans to evacuate Americans stranded in Europe.
India said nearly 40,000 air passengers were still stranded in the country. The government relaxed visa rules and waived fees for travelers affected by the global flight disruption.
Emirates airline's president warned that the European aviation industry could face an “implosion” if the volcanic ash cloud grounds flights indefinitely. Tim Clark told reporters in Dubai his airline, the Middle East's biggest carrier, would deal with the crisis despite having a fifth of its fleet grounded. But he predicted that European carriers were especially at risk.
