Dubai: Emirates, the biggest Arab carrier, said, it has resumed flights to certain European destinations, including , France, Italy, Austria, Turkey, Malta, Cyprus, Greece and Russia.
"But the situation remains fluid and subject to change. We are closely monitoring developments," a statement said.
List of worldwide airports closed due to ash cloud
Around 100,000 passengers around the network have been affected, the airline said.
"At the height of the disruption, Emirates was accommodating about 6,000 people in hotels across Dubai. That figure is gradually being reduced as European airspace re-opens," the statement said.
Emirates is working flat out to ensure that customers whose travel has been disrupted by the volcanic ash clouds can be moved on as quickly as possible.
Emirates estimates that around 20,000 of its passengers are being inconvenienced for each day that the disruption continues. The airline has been losing around $10 million per day and a fifth of the fleet has been grounded.
Nearly 600 flight deck and cabin crew are also stranded throughout Europe. The longer the situation goes on, the more complicated the recovery becomes.
"In terms of the contingency plan, once flights begin operating, we will do our very best to take care of passengers whose trips were first disrupted. Passengers have been very patient and we are grateful for that. We ask everyone to bear with us," an airline spokesperson said.
"As you can imagine, Emirates is receiving a very high volume of calls to our contact centres. We'd ask all customers to go to www.emirates.com for the very latest flight information, which is updated every five minutes. We must stress that passengers should not to go to the airport without a confirmed booking.
"Passengers who are booked to travel during the next five days may wish to consider if their travel is essential, and possibly cancel their trips to allow those stranded to be accommodated. As always, our primary concern is for the safety of our passengers and crew and this will not be compromised."
Industry impact on day 6 of volcano disruption
European airports made tentative steps toward resuming flights on Tuesday after a cloud of volcanic ash shut down traffic last week, but much airspace stayed closed in a sixth day of disruption. Here are impacts on industries ranging from telecoms to toll roads on Day Six:
Autos
Luxury carmaker BMW said it would stop production in its German plant in Dingolfing on Tuesday night, with Regensburg to following on Wednesday and Munich on Thursday due to lack of electronic components.
Transport
Distances driven by Norwegians have increased by 500 percent since the Icelandic volcano erupted, the Norwegian branch of car rental company Avis said. "Our colleagues report customers renting cars to go from Bergen to Lisbon," a journey of more than 3,500 km, said Avis Norway sales and marketing director Tonje Fossum. Spanish tollway firm Abertis said it is benefiting as stranded travellers take to the roads. It said rising road travel on its French tollways was compensating for the impact of airport closures across Europe, including at Abertis's Luton airport in the UK. Britain and France agreed to allow ferries crossing the English Channel from the southern English port of Dover to carry 10 per cent more passengers to help repatriate stranded travellers. Britain's Maritime and Coastguard Agency said larger ferries will be allowed to take more people during daylight hours in good weather for a short period.
Telecoms
A number of companies joined Cisco Systems said it was offering free trials of its phone and web conferencing systems and Polycom, a US company offering conferencing services, said it had seen a jump in demand.
North Sea oil
Norwegian officials said helicopter flights to oil and gas platforms to the North Sea were suspended but Statoil said later in the day it had resumed some flights.
Retail
British-based supermarket group Tesco, the world's No. 4 retailer, said it was arranging to pick up UK-bound Kenyan flowers from Spain, but it and other European retail giants Metro and Rewe of Germany stressed that only a tiny proportion of products travelled by air.
Industry gatherings
Reed Elsevier's flagship London Book Fair, which last year hosted 12,225 visitors and 1,567 exhibitors, was eerily quiet, with some events cancelled and many speakers replaced. One exhibitor was overheard saying one-third of her meetings had been cancelled, and fair organisers offered signs reading: "Sorry, we're currently unable to man our stand," to companies who couldn't make it. Ukraine's main agriculture consultancy UkrAgroConsult said it had postponed its annual Black Sea grain conference, scheduled to start on Wednesday and normally attended by representatives of 50 countries.
Airlines/Airports
KPMG warned that the shutdown would start causing serious difficulties for smaller airlines within days. Dart Group, owner of British low-cost airline Jet2.com, said the carrier had sufficient financial resources to withstand a considerable period of disruption despite having so far lost 2.8 million pounds in profit. The airline, which has 32 planes flying to several of the affected countries, expects the daily profit impact to be 0.35 million pounds for every further day of disruption. British airports operator BAA, majority owned by Spain's Ferrovial, estimates the daily impact from airport closures on adjusted EBITDA and cash flow at about $7.65 million.
– Reuters
