London airports reopen

London airports reopen after ash shutdowns

London's main airports Heathrow and Gatwick reopened Monday after being forced to close by the volcanic ash cloud, but airports in Northern Ireland and others around Britain remained shut.

Heathrow, Europe's busiest airport, reopened at 07:00 am (0600 GMT) as did Gatwick.

However restrictions remained on flights because of their proximity to a dense section of the shifting ash cloud from a volcano in Iceland.

Airports inside the no-fly zone were shut until 1200 GMT with all airports in Northern Ireland and the Isle of Man to remain closed until then.

Scotland's busiest airport, Edinburgh, plus Aberdeen and Inverness were closed while Wales's main airport Cardiff was shut, as was Swansea.

In England, Bristol in the southwest and Farnborough, southwest of London, were also closed until 1200 GMT.

In the Netherlands meanwhile, the authorities announced the closure of the airports in Amsterdam and Rotterdam from 6:00 am (0400 GMT) to 2:00 pm Monday.

The latest ash closures came at the beginning of a week where air travel disruption was already expected due to a five-day strike by British Airways cabin crew set to kick off Tuesday.

Europe's skies were partially closed for up to a week in April following the eruption of Iceland's Eyjafjoell volcano, in the biggest shutdown of the continent's airspace for more than 50 years.

Experts fear the volcanic ash can damage jet engines and create a serious risk of a crash.

"There is slightly increased activity for the past two days, there has been some ash fall around the glacier," Bjoern Oddsson a University of Iceland vulcanologist told AFP.

"The column (of smoke) has increased and rises up to eight kilometres (five miles)," as opposed to six kilometres in previous days.

But its effect on European flights depended entirely on the winds, he added.

-News courtesy of Channel Newsasia-