European air traffic faced growing disruption yesterday as a cloud of ash spewing from an Icelandic volcano affected flights in Spain, France and Portugal and closed Barcelona airport, authorities said.
Hundreds of flights were cancelled while many transatlantic services were delayed as they skirted the plume of debris from the Eyjafjoell volcano, which plunged air travel across the continent into chaos last month.
"Ash eruptions are ongoing and the area of potential ash contamination is expanding," the Brussels-based European air traffic coordination agency Eurocontrol said in a statement.
Transatlantic flights, being re-routed around the area owing to different concentrations of ash particles and predicted engine tolerance levels at different altitudes, were already experiencing "substantial delays", it said.
Approximately 25,000 flights were expected to cross European skies yesterday, well down from more than 30,000 last Friday.
"The reduction of available airspace is also impacting flights arriving in or departing from the Iberian peninsula and delays could be expected," Eurocontrol said.
Spain shut down 19 airports because of the ash cloud including Barcelona, Spain's second biggest airport, which ceased operations at 2.30 p.m. yesterday, national airport operator Aena said.
A total of 673 flights had already been cancelled and Aena said the closures would be in place until at least 9 p.m. yesterday. National airline Iberia suspended all flights to northern Spain.
In Portugal, 104 flights serving Lisbon, Oporto and Faro were cancelled yesterday, hitting mainly low-cost airlines, airport officials and websites said.
Portuguese air traffic control said restrictions would be lifted gradually from 1 p.m.
In France, the national weather service said the ash cloud would be covering the southern part of the country by late yesterday, with concentrations rising to 6,000 metres.
Meteo France official Roxane Desire could not predict if the ash would disperse before Wednesday's opening of the Cannes film festival, when private jets in particular throng Riviera airports.
An Air France plane took off from Paris Charles de Gaulle airport yesterday afternoon on a flight to test ash levels, an airport sources said.
Marseille airport, the main French hub for low-cost carrier Ryanair, said all that company's flights from 3 p.m. had been cancelled, plus two services to Lisbon, making a total of 15 flights. There were also cancellations from Bordeaux.
In Iceland itself some 60 inhabitants of the zone around the volcano have left the area voluntarily following the fresh eruptions, a civil protection agency official said yesterday.
"There is a lot of ash falling and the community is affected," Gudrun Johannesdottir told AFP, adding that authorities were monitoring the situation closely but no evacuation had been ordered.
"The Red Cross opened centres for people needing assistance. Those leaving (the area) have to report to the Red Cross," she said.