Ash from an erupting Icelandic volcano forced the cancellation Tuesday of some 500 flights in Europe, mainly in British airspace, according to dpa. However, 29,000 flights were still expected to operate in European airspace, the Brussels-based association of European air traffic controllers, Eurocontrol, said. There were also indications that activity at Grimsvotn was reducing, the Icelandic Meteorological Office said, citing that the plume was between 3 and 5 kilometres high. When it erupted Saturday, Iceland's most active volcano created a plume about 20 kilometres high. By Monday it was between 8 to 10 kilometres. "There is much less activity in the volcano, less tremors, lower plume and less ash," Urdur Gunnarsdottir of the Icelandic civil protection and emergency agency told the German Press Agency dpa. Projections from the Volcanic Ash Advisory Centre (VAAC) in London, which tracks the ash cloud, said parts of Denmark, southern Norway and Sweden were the next areas to be affected. Scandinavian aviation authorities were preparing for disruptions, depending on the level of ash concentration. Some flights from airports in western Norway were cancelled, aviation agency Avinor said. Passengers were advised to regularly check websites operated by airlines, travel operators or airports they were leaving from. Authorities in Germany were also considering whether to close airports in the north of the country. A year ago, a volcano that erupted under the Eyjafjallajokull glacier caused major disruptions to air traffic in Europe, with hundreds of flights grounded for days due to mechanical safety concerns over the volcanic ash cloud. Following the disruptions in 2010, European transport ministers and authorities introduced rules on flying based on ash concentration. Flying was banned in the high-risk zone, but individual countries were allowed to decide whether to allow flights in the medium-risk zone. In Brussels, EU Transport Commissioner Siim Kallas said there were plans in place to call a meeting of EU transport ministers if needed, but noted that measures introduced after the 2010 eruption appeared sufficient "to maintain the majority of flights." British Airways, KLM, Aer Lingus, EasyJet and Ryanair were among airlines that earlier cancelled flights from all Scottish airports to destinations within Britain and abroad. Iceland late Monday reopened all its international airports, including the main international airport at Keflavik. Ash continued to fall in Iceland, affecting farms and communities south of the volcano and in combination with strong winds created an "ash blizzard" with very poor visibility, Teitur Arason of the Meteorological Office said earlier.
