Dubai: Airlines Wednesday resumed flights between the UAE and Europe after most airport authorities lifted the flight ban caused by the Icelandic volcanic eruption.
Lufthansa, KLM and UAE carriers Emirates and Etihad Airways have returned to their normal schedules while the air space remains open.
Some carriers like Emirates are also ramping up services to hubs like London, Frankfurt, Munich and Paris to clear the backlog built up over the past week when European airspace was closed due to the ash cloud.
"While we plan to operate all flights this evening and tomorrow, passengers should not yet expect that their flight will run to schedule," Etihad chief executive James Hogan said in a statement yesterday.
Scheduled services
He said that if air space remained open, operations would return to normal within 24 hours. The airline resumed scheduled services to London, Paris, Brussels and Geneva, and would continue to operate services to these destinations, subject to the airports remaining open.
Emirates president Tim Clark said on Tuesday the airline would deploy its A380 aircraft to move passengers as fast as possible, as and when destinations open up.
"The gradual re-opening of UK airspace is a relief and critical to smoothing our Europe operations. Having said that, we have a long way to go before normality returns and it's important that passengers bear with us," said Richard Vaughan, Emirates divisional senior vice-president of commercial operations worldwide in a statement yesterday.
Meanwhile, the International Air Transport Association (IATA) said disruptions caused by the spreading ash cloud have cost the entire industry more than $1.7 billion (Dh6.23 billion) in lost revenue. The watchdog earlier urged governments to reopen air space as quickly as possible to minimise damage to the aviation industry. It said the shutdown impact had been worse than that following 9/11.
Long-haul
Lufthansa, one of Europe's largest carriers, operated all its long-haul flights yesterday and "the flight plan for domestic and inter-European destinations [would] be expanded throughout the day." It said it would resume normal operations today.
Air France-KLM resumed all its long-haul flights and around two-thirds of its mid-haul flights.
Britain opened its airspace Tuesday night and said it would allow all long-haul flights to and from Heathrow and Gatwick airports.
Passenger movement through Dubai International Airport also increased dramatically.
