Vancouver flights to Europe uncertain

Flying from Canadian cities to England, France and most of northwestern Europe will likely be all but impossible on Friday, but officials at Vancouver International Airport are not yet ready to throw in the towel.

Despite the cancellation of most European-bound flights on Thursday, at 8 a.m. PT Friday the Vancouver airport still listed several flights to London, Amsterdam and Frankfurt as departing this afternoon and evening.

But all that could change before the flights take off, because much of the airspace over northwestern Europe remains clouded by huge plumes of airborne ash from a volcanic eruption in Iceland. The tiny, abrasive ash particles can seriously damage aircraft engines.

The closure of major international hubs like Heathrow Airport is having a ripple effect around the world, forcing travellers to make alternate plans or simply wait until European airspace is reopened.

Flights to and through England aren't expected to resume until Saturday morning, but some flights have resumed in Scotland and Northern Ireland.

On Thursday evening one Thomas Cook charter flight did depart Vancouver for Prestwick airport in Scotland, after the pilots assured nervous passengers that they had clearance to land. But by the time the flight reached the British Isles, officials had to divert it to Manchester, England, to land.

Lisa Coldwells, a meteorologist with Environment Canada, said while weather experts can predict where the ash is going to drift, nobody can predict when the volcano will subside sufficiently to allow transatlantic air traffic to return to normal.

"We can see how it's going to disperse. Unfortunately what we can't do is forecast how the volcano is going to continually erupt. As the ash is being ejected into the atmosphere, we can forecast it, see where it's going — but we don't know when it's going to stop."

European airspace closures

Officials had hoped to reopen airspace over Paris today but that plan began to look doubtful, after the U.K., Norway, Sweden and Denmark extended bans on flights over their countries for a second day on Friday.

Airspace in Norway, Sweden and Ireland is expected to be gradually reopened Friday, and some flights are expected to start moving through airports in southern France and southern Germany.

Meanwhile, airspace over some parts of Poland, Slovakia and Austria is being closed as the ash drifts south across Europe and east towards Russia.

The ash cloud, which limits visibility and can damage a plane's engine, will affect flights for "at least the next 24 hours," the air traffic control body Eurocontrol said Friday.

"We expect around 11,000 flights to take place today in European airspace. On a normal day, we would expect 28,000," said Kyla Evans, a spokeswoman for Eurocontrol.

The ash is spewing from a volcano beneath Iceland's Eyjafjallajokull glacier that started erupting Wednesday for the second time in less than a month.

The high-altitude cloud forced aviation authorities in Britain and other parts of northern Europe to start grounding thousands of flights Thursday, causing the biggest flight disruption since the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States.