Spain has closed 19 airports as a cloud of ash from an Icelandic volcano drifts south over Western Europe.
Air traffic was expected to be affected until 00:00 GMT on Sunday morning, at which time flights would gradually resume.
However, the government said there was a chance the cloud could still be affecting Spain next week.
Ash Cloud
The government said over 400 flights would be cancelled, leaving almost 40,000 people stuck in airports stretching from La Coruna in the northwest to Barcelona in the northeast.
Most flights between Europe and North America are being diverted because of the ash cloud’s latest drifting, officials at Eurocontrol, the agency that co-ordinates aviation safety in Europe, said.
Flights are being rerouted north and south of the 2,000km long cloud.
The Spanish national airport management agency (Aena) said the airports affected were Barcelona, Girona, Sabadell, Bilbao, San Sebastian, Vitoria, Zaragoza, Huesca, Pamplona, Logrono, Santiago, La Coruna, Vigo, Asturias, Santander, Leon, Valladolid, Burgos and Salamanca.
Airspace across Europe was closed down for up to a week last month after the eruption of Iceland’s Eyjafjallajokull volcano, but was reopened after emergency talks between European governments, airlines and regulators.
Credit: http://english.aljazeera.net
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