Flight ban remains in place across Europe
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Belgium has extended closure of its airspace until 0600 GMT Monday.Ireland will keep its airspace closed until 1200 GMT Monday. Airspace across northern Italy will remain closed until 0500 GMT Monday.
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The volcano in southern Iceland's Eyjafjallajokull glacier sends ash into the air Friday, April 16, 2010. [Xinhua] |
Turkey's airspace between the flight level of 200 and 350 will be closed to flights from 4:30 p.m. local time (1430 GMT) Sunday to 12:00 a.m. (1000 GMT) Monday, the Civil Aviation Directorate said in a statement on its website.
All airspace of the Netherlands remains shut until at least 0600 GMT Monday.
Germany's international airports remain shut until 1800 GMT Monday. However, the country temporarily loosened some airspace restrictions, allowing limited operations from some of its largest airports.
Six airports in central and northern Poland, including Warsaw, reopened for commercial flights.
Virtually all Norwegian airspace was opened by Sunday evening and all of the country's largest airports, including Oslo airport, were operating.
Macedonia's civil aviation agency said on Sunday that it was not planning to close the country's airspace and airports in spite of volcanic ash alarm. All the airports in Russia and Spain remain open.
The massive cancellation of flights left EU finance ministers who did show up for a three-day meeting in Madrid with no other choice but to take overnight trains or even coaches back home.
Spain's Finance Minister Elena Salgado, who chaired the meeting as representative of the EU's rotating presidency, said EU Economic and Monetary Affairs Commissioner Olli Rehn had to skip the final press conference so as to rush back to Brussels by taking a train at first to Paris.
The German delegation, headed by deputy finance minister Joerg Asmussen, also ended its participation ahead of schedule owing to the "unusual circumstances surrounding the return trip." Both Germany and France canceled planned press conference on Thursday.
In addition to those early leavers, the three-day meeting was plagued by absences. At least a quarter of the 27 EU finance ministers, including those from Belgium, Britain, Finland and Denmark, failed to arrive in Madrid after their home flights were canceled.
The chaos at the EU finance ministers' meeting was just part of the disruption of the EU's workings due to the volcanic ash cloud. EU agriculture ministers had planned to meet on Monday in Brussels, but the meeting has been canceled.
European authorities face mounting pressure to reopen the airspace. According to the International Air Transport Association, the volcanic ash cloud is costing the European aviation industry at least 200 million U.S. dollars a day.
EU transport ministers will hold a video conference Monday on the ash cloud, which has stranded millions of travelers.
EU Transport Commissioner Siim Kallas told reporters in Brussels that "It is clear that this is not sustainable. We cannot just wait until this ash cloud dissipates."
European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said on Sunday he had decided to set up an ad-hoc group to assess the impact of the volcanic ash cloud on the air travel industry and the economy.
