Flights resume as lockdown eases

Europe eased its aerial lockdown yesterday with almost half of its scheduled flights taking to the skies, but more ash from Iceland's billowing volcano prolonged the agony of most stranded passengers.
Although the eruption of ash that has blackened the skies around the Eyjafjallajokull volcano lost some of its fury, plumes that headed toward Britain meant the runways at the continent's busiest airport remained closed for most of the day.
However, a spokesman at London's Heathrow airport said it reopened just before 9 p.m. GMT after the British air-safety watchdog announced a gradual lifting of flight restrictions.
"I can confirm Heathrow has now reopened, a first BA flight from Vancouver has landed," he said.
And last night, Roberto Kobeh Gonzalez, president of the Montrealbased International Civil Aviation Organization, said it was now safe to fly to Europe.
As some European countries, including France, Germany and Belgium, allowed a gradual resumption of flights, passengers lucky enough to get a ticket home spoke of their utter joy.
"I've never been so happy in my life going back home," said Shahriar Ravari from San Diego, waiting at a Paris airport for a flight to Los Angeles with the end of his travel nightmare in sight.
"I love France, but to be going home is something else."
More than seven million people have been stranded across the globe since Europe began shutting down airspace on April 14. The world association of airlines, IATA, said the crisis was costing the industry at least US$200-million a day.
Willie Walsh, the British Airways chief executive, said it could take weeks for the airline industry to return to a "normal level of operation."
"I do not believe it was necessary to impose a blanket ban on all U.K. airspace last Thursday," he said.
Spain's European minister, Diego Lopez Garrido, whose country currently holds the EU presidency, meanwhile, rejected criticism that
EU members lost precious time before co-ordinating the reopening of some countries' airspace.
"I think the European Union responded well to this huge crisis," he told journalists.
Eurocontrol, the body co-ordinating air traffic control across the region, said almost three-quarters of European airspace was open late yesterday but less than half of scheduled flights were set to depart.
All airspace above 6,096 metres (19,700 feet) was open for flights except in the skies over Finland, the statement said.
Eurocontrol added that it expected 13,000 flights to take place yesterday in European airspace. "On a normal Tuesday, we would expect 28,000."
Ireland and Sweden were among the few countries that kept their airspace closed.
Airlines such as British Airways and Germany's Lufthansa have been at the forefront of pressure for an immediate reopening of the airspace and had hoped that yesterday would mark the beginning of the end of the crisis.
Australia's Qantas Airways extended its ban on flights to and from Europe for another 24 hours, but Air China said it had resumed routes between Beijing and destinations including Moscow, Stockholm and Rome.
South African Airways cancelled what was to be its first flight to London since April 14.
In Iceland itself, police said the plume of ash from the Eyjafjallajokull volcano was diminishing but warned there was "still considerable volcanic activity at the site and three seemingly separate craters are still erupting."
The World Meteorological Organisation said the ash was expected to head toward the Arctic when the weather changes later in the week.