The calculation of ash cloud movement on Monday at 20:00 EEST by the National Environmental Research Institute in Aarhus University, Denmark, shows that the airspace in Greece and at all Greek Airports, including Athens and Thessaloniki airport, will be affected by the volcanic ash cloud by 1500 UTC ( 1700 Local) tomorrow the 20th of April.
On Monday, the 19th April all Greek Airports remained open and are currently only effected by disruptions for air traffic from/to Athens International Airport to certain European airports. Aegean has already cancelled 16 flights to European destinations for tomorrow and Olympic airlines has cancelled two flights, so far.
The official site of International Airport of Athens, Eleftherios Venizelos, in a statement today, warns passengers to contact their airlines for flight information, as most of European airports are closed, and most of the flights are experiencing delays or are cancelled.
Although, with the recent decision of the European Union transport ministers on Monday, who agreed to start gradually easing flight restriction, this potential closure could be avoided. Under the agreement, the area immediately around the volcano will remain closed but ministers called for the “progressive and coordinated” opening of airspace in a second zone further from the volcano.”From tomorrow morning we should see more planes flying,” EU Transport Commissioner Siim Kallas told a news conference after the ministers’ held a video conference. He said the agreement would go into force at 0600 GMT on Tuesday, adding: “There will be no compromise on safety.”
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