Flight ban lifted

21st April 2010, by Chris Gill

Cloud disperses slowly

Airlines have been given the all-clear to resume flights into and out of the UK following the shutdown because of volcanic ash.

But it will take some time to ease the chaos, as planes and crew are repositioned and travellers head for home at last.

NATS announced that flights could resume from 10pm on Tuesday 20 April, after safety tests showed that planes could fly in areas of low ash density. However, not all airlines have resumed services yet, and it will take some time for the backlog to ease – some 95,000 flights were cancelled during the six-day ban, and thousands of travellers are still trying to get home.

The latest situation is that easyJet expects to operate 86% of its flights from Wednesday, while BA’s services won’t resume before noon. Ryanair won’t be resuming its northern European flights until Thursday, and charter airline Thomson is only offering inbound services at present. 

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