Almost all flights will operate in Europe tomorrow after an easing of restrictions caused by the spread of volcanic ash from Iceland, European air traffic agency Eurocontrol today.
Eurocontrol said it expected 22,500 flights, or 80 per cent, to take place on today, compared with about 28,000 that would normally be scheduled.
It added almost all of European airspace below 6,000 metres (20,000 feet) was available, with restrictions in some areas such as Finland and parts of northern Scotland.
Transatlantic flights had returned to normal, with 338 flights arriving in Europe today, Eurocontrol said.
Britain reopened its airspace last night after the Civil Aviation Authority said scientists and manufacturers had downgraded the risk of flying in areas of relatively low ash concentrations. British Airways operated all its long-haul flights departing from Heathrow and Gatwick airports today, but there were short-haul cancellations to and from London airports this morning.
Air France ran all long-haul flights today, Poland re-opened its airspace, and the Dutch allowed night flights from yesterday after taking the lead in allowing passenger flights on Monday.
German airspace opened this morning. But of 60 flights listed on the Frankfurt airport website today, 46 were cancelled.
Flights from Beijing and other Chinese cities to European destinations began to return to normal today.
With aircraft having flown successful test flights for several days, recriminations have started about what took governments so long to give the green light to an airline industry which according to the International Air Travel Association (IATA) lost over €1 billion in revenues.
The head of IATA urged governments to examine ways to compensate airlines for their losses and said it would take the airlines industry at least three years to recover.
"It is an extraordinary situation exaggerated with a poor decision-making process by national governments," IATA director general and chief executive Giovanni Bisignani said in a statement.
The Association of European Airlines, representing 36 major commercial and freight carriers, criticised Britain for not reopening its skies sooner.
Icelandic weather officials said today the volcano under the Eyjafjallajokull glacier was still erupting, but producing much less ash.
"There is ongoing activity in the volcano and we don't see any signs of it coming to an end. There is less ash production, it is probably the same as yesterday," Gudrun Nina Petersen told a news conference. “The plume is very low, so most of the ash is falling here and keeping itself under 6,000 metres," she said.
An expert from the World Meteorological Organisation said in Geneva that a low pressure weather system moving into Iceland should help clear the ash cloud within days.