European air traffic close to normal Thursday: Eurocontrol

Air traffic in Europe disrupted by the volcano eruption in Iceland is expected to return almost to normal on Thursday, the body coordinating air traffic control across the continent said.

"It is anticipated that almost 100 percent of the air traffic will take place in Europe tomorrow, Thursday 22 April," Eurocontrol said in a statement.

It said it expected "approximately 22,500 flights to take place today in European airspace. On a normal Wednesday, we would expect 28,000. Thus over 80 percent of the total number of flights are expected to take place in Europe."

Eurocontrol said that all European airspace above 20,000 feet (6,000 metres) is available for use, while most was below, except for restrictions in limited areas, notably airports in Finland and parts of northern Scotland.

Trans-Atlantic operations were back to normal, with 338 flights arriving in Europe, it said.

Earlier, the organisation said that by the end of Wednesday it expected that a total of more than 100,000 flights would have been cancelled since April 15 when the cloud of volcanic ash first spread across northern Europe.