EU transport ministers are to hold emergency talks by video conference on easing the air travel crisis caused by a volcanic ash cloud in Europe's skies. More than 6.8 million passengers have been affected so far, as the crisis enters its fifth day. Airports and airlines are questioning the need for curbs said to be costing airlines $200m (£130m) a day. The International Air Transport Association (IATA) has criticised European governments' response. "We must move away from this blanket closure and find ways to flexibly open air space, step by step," IATA head Giovanni Bisignani told a news briefing in Paris. MAJOR EU AIRPORTS 0800 19/04 Heathrow - closed Frankfurt - closed after reopening on a limited basis for several hours on Sunday Paris Charles de Gaulle - closed Schipol, Amsterdam - closed Rome - limited service Madrid - limited service The enormous shroud of fine mineral dust particles now stretches from the Arctic Circle in the north to the French Mediterranean coast in the south, and from Spain into Russia. Airspace remains closed, or partially closed, in more than 20 countries. Sixty-three thousand flights have been cancelled in the four days since the clampdown began. And the prospect of a return to normal air travel remains far from clear. Speaking ahead of the EU talks, Transport Commissioner Siim Kallas said: "We cannot just wait until this ash cloud dissipates." The Spanish Minister for Europe, Diego Lopez Garrido, had said on Sunday that up to half of the flights across Europe could operate on Monday. He was speaking after talks with Eurocontrol, which co-ordinates air traffic control in 38 nations. It had recommended the current flight ban. But Brian Flynn, deputy head of operations for Eurocontrol, told the BBC that while half of the European landmass could be clear of ash cloud, that did not mean half of the flights could go ahead. The flight bans came amid fears that the ash - a mixture of glass, sand and rock particles - can seriously damage aircraft engines. The international airports council, ACI, said a total of 313 airports had been paralysed by the restrictions and the global backlog was affecting more than 6.8 million travellers. In another development, hundreds of thousands of Kenyans working in agriculture, the country's largest export sector, face economic uncertainty because of the flight bans. Refrigerated stores at Nairobi airport and on farms are now completely full, and a huge amount of fresh flowers and vegetables destined for the European market is in danger of perishing, the BBC's East Africa correspondent, Will Ross, reports. The problems have also led to the postponement of next Saturday's Japanese MotoGP. Data assessment The EU transport ministers' video conference, hosted by Spain, is set to consider a proposal that passengers from countries like Britain, who are stranded in the US or Asia, would fly into Spain and then continue their journey by train, boat or coach. ANALYSIS Robert Peston, BBC Business Editor The two biggest British airlines are incurring painful losses. British Airways is losing around £25m ($38m) a day; and Easyjet up to £5m ($7.6m) a day. But they also have substantial borrowing facilities and cash, and can cope with a financial pain so long as it doesn't last too long. Many other airlines across Europe are less fortunate, which is why ministers are telling me that a Europe-wide financial support scheme for the airline industry - funded by taxpayers - is a very live issue. As for the impact on the wider economy, supermarkets say that supplies of imported flowers and exotic fruit and vegetables are beginning to run low. And businesses dependant on air freight are hurting. But the crisis would probably have to endure for many more days yet for the cost to be big enough to upset Europe's economic recovery. Peston: Airlines to ask for help Dutch Transport Minister Camiel Eurlings was "advocating for a different approach to the problem", the Dutch transport inspectorate said. This would entail "drawing a distinction between areas with low concentrations and those with high concentrations" of ash when making decisions on air safety. The UK Transport Secretary, Lord Adonis, said information from various test flights on Sunday, assessing the impact of the dust on jet engines, would be considered during the conference. Siim Kallas said European authorities were working to find a solution that did not compromise safety. Southern Iceland's Eyjafjallajoekull volcano began erupting for the second time in a month on Wednesday. Iceland's Meteorological Office said tremors from the volcano had grown more intense but the column of ash rising from it had eased to around 5km (3.1 miles). Ash still 'very worrying' Britain has extended a ban on most flights in its airspace until at least 1900 local time on Monday (1800 GMT). Please turn on JavaScript. Media requires JavaScript to play. Ireland, Germany and the Netherlands are keeping their airspace closed until 1200 GMT on Monday. Spain has re-opened its airspace after a brief closure. Officials there have suggested its airports could be used as an entry platform into Europe. Our business editor, Robert Peston, understands that British Airways fears it may not be allowed to fly normal services until Thursday at the earliest. One measure being discussed by the British government is the possibility of deploying the Royal Navy to collect some of the estimated 150,000 Britons who are stranded abroad. While several airlines carried out test flights and reported planes showing no obvious damage after flying through the ash, a scientific test flight over Britain concluded that the situation could still be dangerous. 
 
 I've been stranded in Madrid since Thursday. We've been told we cannot get a flight until 26 April at the earliest. 
 
 Christine Blanchard 
 
 Volcano ash: Your stories Dr Guy Gratton, who was part of the scientific team, said: "It's still quite a complex mixture of clear air and very worrying but invisible volcanic ash at all sorts of heights." Weather experts say wind patterns mean the cloud is not likely to move far until later in the week. Eurocontrol said there were only 5,000 flights in European airspace on Sunday, against 24,000 normally. 
 
 
 
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 StumbleUpon What are these? E-mail this to a friend Printable version ||||| AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - Flights from large parts of Europe are set to resume on Tuesday under a deal agreed by the European Union to free up airspace closed by a cloud of ash hurled into the sky by an Icelandic volcano. 
 
 World 
 
 However, with the cloud still spreading and only sketchy details of how the authorities would split European airspace into areas where aircraft could fly or not, other countries are adopting a more cautious approach. 
 
 "From tomorrow morning we should see more planes flying," EU Transport Commissioner Siim Kallas told reporters on Monday after EU transport ministers held a video conference. 
 
 The deal brought relief to some of the millions of passengers whose travel plans have been disrupted worldwide since Thursday, and offered hope to frustrated airlines worldwide losing $250 million a day from the shutdown and seeing their shares tumble. 
 
 "I'm so happy," said one man with tears in his eyes as he ran for his flight from Schiphol Airport on Monday night, one of three bound for New York, Shanghai and Dubai from Amsterdam with almost 800 passengers on board. 
 
 Dutch Transport Minister Camiel Eurlings promised weary travelers that the Netherlands was "taking a lead" in getting Europe moving, but said its airspace could be closed again if ash levels rose. 
 
 But neighboring Germany will mostly maintain its no-fly zone until 1200 GMT, and in Britain, where some northern airports excluding London's international hubs will reopen from 0600 GMT, National Air Traffic Services warned ominously: 
 
 "The volcano eruption in Iceland has strengthened and a new ash cloud is spreading south and east toward the UK." 
 
 The cloud brushed up against Canada's eastern seaboard on Monday, but Environment Canada said it was diffuse, moving slowly and should not affect Canadian airports. 
 
 AIRLINE LOSSES 
 
 The EU deal was reached under pressure from the airline industry, which says it is losing $250 million in revenue a day. The global freight supply chain is also beginning to sag. 
 
 Under the agreement, which Kallas said would go into force from 0600 GMT, the area immediately around the volcano will remain closed. 
 
 But flights may be permitted in a wider zone with a lower concentration of ash, subject to local safety assessments and scientific advice, the European aviation control agency Eurocontrol said in a statement. 
 
 Airlines had declared numerous test flights problem-free over the past days, but experts have disagreed over how to measure the ash and who should decide it is safe to fly. A British Airways jet lost power in all four engines after flying through an ash cloud above the Indian Ocean in 1982. 
 
 France said it was reopening some airports to create air corridors to Paris. Italian airspace will open from 0600 GMT. 
 
 Eurocontrol said it expected up to 9,000 flights to have operated in Europe on Monday, just a third of normal volume. 
 
 "The scale of the economic impact (on aviation) is now greater than 9/11, when U.S. airspace was closed for three days," International Air Transport Association (IATA) head Giovanni Bisignani said. 
 
 "We must move away from this blanket closure and find ways to flexibly open air space, step by step." [nLDE63I0GA] 
 
 Worldwide, industry losses for passenger airlines and cargo companies could reach as much as $3 billion from the cloud, Helane Becker, an analyst with Jesup & Lamont Securities, told Reuters Insider on Monday. For U.S. airlines, she estimated the impact at $400 million to $600 million. 
 
 TRAVEL MISERY 
 
 Firms dependent on fast air freight were feeling the strain. 
 
 Kenya's flower exporters said they were already losing up to $2 million a day. Kenya accounts for about a third of flower imports into the European Union. 
 
 "Everything (is being) pushed back down the pipeline," said Greg Knowler, editor of Cargonews Asia in Hong Kong. "The freight forwarders are actually sending stuff back to the factories ... One German forwarder that's based here reckons they have 4,000 tonnes of backlog in Hong Kong." 
 
 Millions of people have had travel disrupted or been stranded and forced to make long, expensive attempts to reach home by road, rail and sea, as well as missing days at work and school at the end of the busy Easter holiday season. 
 
 British businessman Chris Thomas had been trying to get home from Los Angeles since Thursday, when the air shutdown began. 
 
 He first flew to Mexico City. From there, he aimed to fly to Madrid and spend $2,000 to rent a car for the 14-hour drive to Paris. He was booked on the Eurostar Channel tunnel train to London, and then planned to drive four hours to Wales. 
 
 "It's all a bit crazy but you have to err on the side of caution," Thomas said. "Nobody wants to be on the first plane to go down in a volcanic cloud." 
 
 In sport, soccer's European Cup holders Barcelona set off on a two-day road trip of nearly 1,000 km on Sunday to play Inter Milan in a Champions League semi-final on Tuesday. 
 
 Businesses have had to find alternative ways of operating. Communications provider Cisco Systems said companies were turning to videoconferencing to connect executives. 
 
 "We have seen a huge spike in usage," said Fredrik Halvorsen, head of Cisco's TelePresence Technology Group. 
 
 Britain is deploying three navy ships including an aircraft carrier to bring its citizens home from continental Europe. The British travel agents' association ABTA estimated 150,000 Britons were stranded abroad. Washington said it was trying to help 40,000 Americans stuck in Britain. 
 
 About 25,000 travelers are stranded in the Philippines. "Lucky for me, I have my laptop and I could still do some work," David Hampson, a humanitarian worker from Manchester, England, told reporters at Manila's international airport. 
 
 (Reporting by London, Geneva, Dublin, Paris, Amsterdam, Brussels, Reykjavik, Washington, Frankfurt and Berlin newsrooms; Writing by Dominic Evans and Alison Williams; Editing by Kevin Liffey) ||||| A dense ash cloud from an Icelandic volcano blew toward Scotland on Monday, causing airlines to cancel flights, forcing President Barack Obama to shorten a visit to Ireland, and raising fears of a repeat of last year's huge travel disruptions in Europe that stranded millions of passengers. 
 
 This satellite image provided by NASA and acquired Sunday May 22, 2011 shows a plume of dense ash from the Grimsvotn volcano in Iceland towards the upper center of the frame. The plume from the volcano... (Associated Press) 
 
 An SAS Boeing 737 aircraft takes off behind Icelandair's stranded Boeing 757 aircraft named after the Icelandic volcano Eyjafjallajokull is parked at a remote stand at Arlanda airport north of Stockholm,... (Associated Press) 
 
 Icelandair's stranded Boeing 757 aircraft named after the Icelandic volcano Eyjafjallajokull is parked at a remote stand at Arlanda airport north of Stockholm, Monday May 23, 2011. The Eyjafjallajokull... (Associated Press) 
 
 Sunset is seen over Kensington Palace in London, Monday, May, 23, 2011. A dense cloud of ash from an Icelandic volcano was being blown toward Scotland Monday, forcing two airlines to cancel their flights,... (Associated Press) 
 
 Icelandair's stranded Boeing 757 aircraft named after the Icelandic volcano Eyjafjallajokull is parked at a remote stand at Arlanda airport north of Stockholm, Monday May 23, 2011. The Eyjafjallajokull... (Associated Press) 
 
 CORRECTS PHOTOG NAME FROM KRISTEN TO KRISTIN Smoke rises from the Grimsvotn volcano, Saturday, May 21, 2011 in Reykjavik, Iceland. Iceland's most active volcano has started erupting, scientists said Saturday... (Associated Press) 
 
 This satellite image provided by NASA and acquired Sunday May 22, 2011 shows the plume of dense ash from the Grimsvotn volcano in Iceland as it casts a shadow to the west. The plume from the volcano... (Associated Press) 
 
 A plane is seen against a sunset over Kensington Palace in London, Monday, May, 23, 2011. A dense cloud of ash from an Icelandic volcano was being blown toward Scotland Monday, forcing two airlines to... (Associated Press) 
 
 Britain's Civil Aviation Authority said it appears that ash from the Grimsvotn (GREEMSH-votn) volcano could reach Scottish airspace early Tuesday and affect other parts of the U.K. and Ireland later in the week. 
 
 British Airways suspended all its flights for Tuesday morning between London and Scotland, while Dutch carrier KLM and Easyjet canceled flights to and from Scotland and northern England at the same time. Two domestic airlines also announced flight disruptions. 
 
 Still, authorities say they don't expect the kind of massive grounding of flights that followed last year's eruption of the Eyjafjallajokull volcano in Iceland because systems and procedures have been improved since then and the cloud is currently not expected to move over continental Europe. 
 
 Pilots unions, however, expressed concerns that the ash could still be dangerous. 
 
 Obama, who had been scheduled to spend Monday night in Ireland, was forced to fly to London early because of the ash cloud _ he landed at the capital's Stansted Airport late Monday. Last year's Icelandic eruption also forced a change in his schedule then, causing him to cancel a trip to Poland. 
 
 Glasgow-based regional airline Loganair canceled 36 Scottish flights scheduled for Tuesday morning, as well as some flights to Birmingham and Belfast. It said its flights between Scottish islands would be unaffected. Another small airline, Eastern Airways, which is based in northern England, also canceled all flights to and from Scotland on Tuesday. 
 
 "Our No. 1 priority is to ensure the safety of people both onboard aircraft and on the ground," said Andrew Haines, chief executive of the CAA. "We can't rule out disruption, but the new arrangements that have been put in place since last year's ash cloud mean the aviation sector is better prepared and will help to reduce any disruption in the event that volcanic ash affects U.K. airspace." 
 
 Many airlines said authorities last year overestimated the danger to planes and overreacted by closing airspace for five days amid fears that the abrasive ash could cause engines to stall. 
 
 CAA spokesman Jonathan Nicholson said authorities this time would give airlines information about the location and density of ash clouds. Any airline that wanted to fly would have to present a safety report to aviation authorities in order to be allowed to fly. 
 
 He said most British airlines had permission to fly through medium-density ash clouds, but none had asked for permission to fly through high-density clouds, classified as having over 4,000 micrograms of ash per cubic meter. 
 
 Even at that concentration of volcanic ash, experts said the air would not look much different from airspace unaffected by the ash, but officials say the tiny particles in the ash can sandblast windows and stop jet engines. 
 
 The international pilots' federation warned that it believed the cloud still presented a potential danger to commercial aircraft despite developments since last year. 
 
 "It remains our view that when there is an unknown then it is always better to err on the side of caution," said Gideon Ewers, spokesman for the International Federation of Air Line Pilots' Associations. 
 
 Thurai Rahulan, a senior lecturer in aeronautics at Salford University in northwest England, said the technology on how to measure and monitor ash has improved, but aircraft's ability to cope with ash has not changed. 
 
 "Aircraft manufacturers have made more resources available to conduct studies on tolerating higher concentrations of ash, but as far as I know, no possible improvements have yet made it to front line operations yet," he said. 
 
 The disruption in Scotland is being caused by the smaller of two ash clouds from the volcano. The main cloud was causing minor disruptions around Scandinavia. 
 
 Iceland's main airport, Keflavik, and domestic airport Reykjavik both reopened Monday after being closed for almost 36 hours. Grimsvotn began erupting Saturday. 
 
 Hjordis Gudmundsdottir, spokeswoman for the airport administrator Isavia, said the first flight to take off would be an Icelandair flight to London Heathrow. 
 
 "The outlook is good for Keflavik and other Icelandic airports in the coming 24 hours," said Gudmundsdottir. "We don't have a forecast for after that so we wait and see." 
 
 The Met Office, Britain's weather forecasters, said there has been no major changes in the forecast _ that some ash will drift across U.K. airspace, mostly in Scotland and Northern Ireland, by Tuesday morning. 
 
 But the weather in the U.K. has been very unsettled in the past two days and will continue to be that way in the days ahead, making predictions difficult. 
 
 "When it's all over the place, it's a bit trickier to predict where things may go," said forecaster Charlie Powell. 
 
 An Icelandic meteorological official said the eruption already appeared to be getting smaller, but Thierry Mariani, France's transport minister, said it was too early to tell whether air travel over Europe would be affected by the eruption. 
 
 Mariani told Europe 1 radio that the composition of the cloud will be examined in the coming days and if the ash is found to be harmful to airplanes, countries may take a joint decision to close part of Europe's airspace. 
 
 "The priority must always remain to ensure security," he said. 
 
 U.K. Transport Secretary Phillip Hammond told the BBC that Britain had equipment in Iceland analyzing the ash as it comes out of the volcano, and equipment in the UK that analyses the density of the ash. 
 
 "We won't see a blanket closing of airspace," he said. 
 
 The plume was drifting mostly southward at a height of 5 kilometers to 9 kilometers (16,404 feet to 29,528 feet), the Icelandic Meteorological Office said in a report late Monday. Those are the normal altitudes for passenger airliners, and the plume was down from a maximum height of 50,000 feet Sunday, said Steinunn Jakobsdottir, a geophysicist at the forecaster. 
 
 The eruption has abated slightly since Sunday and no earthquakes have been recorded at the site since then, the forecaster said. 
 
 The European air traffic control agency's models showed the main plume of ash gradually extending northward from Iceland in the next two days. The cloud is predicted to arch its way north of Scandinavia and possibly touch the islands off the northern Russian coastline within the next two days. 
 
 Eurocontrol said the smaller ash plume was not expected to move farther east than the west coast of Scotland. 
 
 Some airline chiefs complained that regulators had overreacted by shutting much of Europe's airspace last year, stranding millions of passengers and causing big losses to airlines. But a study last month in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences concluded the shutdown had been justified. 
 
 The possibility of disruption appeared to be affecting airline shares, which fell more than the market average. IAG, the parent company of British Airways and Iberia, closed down 5.1 percent on the day while Lufthansa shed 3.5 percent and Air France KLM fell 4.5 percent. 
 
 ___ 
 
 Lekic reported from Brussels. Sylvia Hui in London, Jan M. Olsen in Copenhagen, Denmark; Gabriele Steinhauser and Raf Casert in Brussels; and Sylvia Hui and Maria Cheng in London contributed to this report. 
 
 ___ 
 
 Map of projected ash movement: http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/volcano/public/eurasia.html
– EU leaders are meeting in an emergency session today to discuss continued flight bans in the wake of the volcanic eruption in Iceland. They're meeting by video teleconference because leaders can't fly anywhere. "We cannot just wait until this ash cloud dissipates," said EU Transport Commissioner Siim Kallas. Increasingly angry airline officials are demanding flight bans be lifted, accusing governments of crisis mismanagement. The International Airline Association blasted the lack of "risk assessment, consultation, management and leadership," AP reports. The decision to close the airspace "was made exclusively as a result of data from a computer simulation in London," an Air Berlin spokesman complained to the Wall Street Journal. Several test flights over the weekend have revealed that engines suffered no harmful effects from the ash. Airport shutdowns have affected some 6.8 million travelers and are costing airlines $200 million a day in lost revenue, reports the BBC. Airspace is closed or partially closed in 20 countries.