Aussie News 5: Thousands stranded after ash from volcanic eruption grounds flights in Europe

• Qantas flights to UK and Germany cancelled
• May not resume until Sunday
• Tens of thousands of travellers affected

QANTAS has cancelled all of today's flights from Australia to the UK and Germany due to the closure of European air space after a spread of ash from a volcanic eruption in Iceland.

Qantas spokesman David Epstein said flights may not resume their regular schedules until Sunday

"Today unfortunately we are unable to get clearance into the UK air space, so we will not be operating any inbound flights into Europe today and we would expect it may be some time before we're able to do so," Mr Epstein said.

He advised passengers due to travel to Europe to check the airline's website for updates, rather than contacting the airport.

Qantas passengers travelling to Singapore have been offered a new service, QF8031 which is scheduled to operate Sydney-Melbourne-Singapore.

In addition to services cancelled to Europe today, QF29 will not operate Melbourne to Hong Kong.

QF1 will operate Sydney to Bangkok only for passengers who have Bangkok as their final travel destination.

Services from Bangkok and Singapore back to Australia will operate as scheduled.

Passengers travelling on the cancelled services will be offered to be transferred to next scheduled services or be given a refund.

Tens of thousands of travellers including Australians have been affected as 10 European countries cancelled up to 5000 flights in the biggest air space closure since the September 11, 2001 attacks.

Britain has extended its ban on most non-emergency flights in its airspace by six hours to 7pm local time (4am Saturday AEST) due to the ash.

Airports in France, Belgium, Ireland, Norway, Sweden, Finland, the Netherlands, Germany, Denmark and Poland have also closed air space.

Flights between North America and Europe face major disruptions, with half of all services expected to be cancelled today.

European flight coordinator Eurocontrol said planes could stay grounded for at least 48 hours.

The Eyjafjallajokull volcanic eruption in southeast Iceland is showing no signs of abating after 40 hours of activity, University of Iceland geophysicist Pall Einarsson said.

"The seismographs are showing that since this morning the intensity of the eruption seems to be growing," he said.

Although not visible from the ground, volcanic ash can be highly dangerous for aircraft, clogging up the engines and reducing visibility.

Critique:

Volcanic ash is highly dangerous for the air craft, so Qantas cancelled all the flights from Australia to UK and Germany. Qantas makes this decision is to protect the safety of their passengers. As the saying goes, " Safety come first", they cannot put their passengers lives in danger.