British airspace to reopen

Flights in Scotland, Northern Ireland and parts of northern England could resume from 7am on Tuesday.

Air traffic control company Nats said it was possible that restrictions on flying in the rest of England and Wales could be lifted later, after adverse flying conditions caused by a cloud of ash from a volcano in Iceland began to ease.

Following days without any flights being permitted over the UK, the first airline to announce a restart of operations was Flybe, which said it would begin flights with a Belfast-Edinburgh service at 10.05am on Tuesday.

Manchester Airport said it would reopen at 9am, while both Gatwick and Heathrow airports warned passengers not to turn up until they had checked first with their airline. British Airways announced it would aim to resume some flights from London's airports from 7pm on Tuesday.

Forecasters said that the eruptions from the volcano have "virtually ceased" but time is needed to ensure that the ash cloud disperses. They also predicted that the winds currently coming from the northeast would switch to the southwest later in the week, taking the ash away to polar regions.

While travel organisations warned that it would be some time before travel and airports were back to normal, airlines are counting the cost of the disruption, which has seen a shutdown of UK airports since the end of last week. BA said the flight ban had cost it around £15 million to £20 million a day.