Flights across much of Europe will be severely disrupted well into Saturday because of drifting ash ejected from a volcano in Iceland, officials said.

Much of the airspace across northern and western Europe has been closed and air control officials said some 17,000 flights would be cancelled on Friday.

Hundreds of thousands of passengers in Europe and around the world have been affected by the disruptions.
Scientists say the volcano is still erupting but producing less ash.

Europe’s intergovernmental air control agency, Eurocontrol, said it “expects around 11,000 flights to take place today in European airspace. On a normal day, we would expect 28,000.”

Of about 300 trans-Atlantic flights that would usually arrive in Europe in the Morning, no more than 120 made it over, the agency said.

“Forecasts suggest that the cloud of volcanic ash is continuing to move east and south-east and that the impact will continue for at least the next 24 hours,” it said in a statement.

More countries moved to close their airspace on Friday morning, joining eight which banned flights on Thursday.

Britain’s air traffic control body extended its unprecedented restrictions on UK airspace until at least 0100BST on Saturday.

Exceptions allowed for Northern Ireland and western Scotland saw the first flight leave UK airspace since the ban was imposed, an Air Transat plane bound for Toronto from Glasgow.

“In general, the situation is dynamic and subject to change,” said a statement issued by the National Air Traffic Service on Friday morning.

COUNTRIES AFFECTED
Airspace closed:
Denmark
Belgium
Netherlands
Finland
Lithuania

Partial closures:
UK
Republic of Ireland (most airspace opened Friday)
Sweden (northern airspace opened Friday)
Norway (limited flights in north)
France (northern airspace)
Germany (northern airspace)
Poland (northern airspace)
Austria (closures from Friday pm)
Czech Republic (full closure expected later Friday)