, Europe's air-traffic management agency said, amid fears that the disruption could spread.
Weather forecasters at the Volcanic Ash Advisory Center in London on Tuesday repeated warnings that there was a risk that some ash clouds may reach parts of northern Europe in the next 48 hours. Iceland and Scotland already are affected.
Dublin, Ireland-based Ryanair Holdings PLC (RYA.DB), a stern critic of the handling of last year's ash cloud crisis, challenged the restrictions, calling on air-traffic controllers to reopen airspace over Scotland after it operated a one-hour verification flight up to 41,000 feet in Scottish airspace.
"There was no visible volcanic ash cloud or any other presence of volcanic ash and the post-flight inspection revealed no evidence of volcanic ash on the airframe, wings or engines," it said in a statement.
"The absence of any volcanic ash in the atmosphere supports Ryanair's stated view that there is no safety threat to aircraft in this mythical 'red zone,' which is another misguided invention by the U.K. Met Office and the [Civil Aviation Authority]," it added. The Met Office is one of nine Volcanic Ash Advisory Centers world-wide and the CAA is the U.K.'s specialist aviation regulator.
A spokesman for the CAA rejected Ryanair's remarks. "Their claim that they flew through high-density ash isn't accurate," he said. The route of the Ryanair flight had been retraced on radar, showing that it didn't enter zones with higher concentrations of ash, he added.
Airlines affected by the ash cloud will be keen to resume operations as quickly as it is safe to do so.
Carriers last year lost millions of euros in revenue when clouds of volcanic ash blanketed much of the Continent, forcing the closure of most of Europe's airspace. While they were unable to fly, they forked out millions of euros more to accommodate stranded passengers unable to complete their journeys.
Ratings agency Fitch Ratings said it expected the impact on the finances of the European airlines to be more muted than in 2010 largely because the industry was in better shape.
"The impact of lost revenue per day to the whole industry [estimated last year by the International Air Transport Association] is around EUR150 million in the worst case scenario--that is, assuming the similar level of airspace closure to that of 2010," said Sabrina Ran, associate director in Fitch's corporates team.
"However, the impact is likely to be limited as the agency expects better coordination between European air-traffic control authorities and the commercial airlines would occur this time round to keep any travel disruption to a minimum."
A spokeswoman for Eurocontrol, a Brussels, Belgium-based intergovernmental organization, said that 500 scheduled flights were expected to be cancelled Tuesday for safety reasons. Typically, there were 29,000 flights daily in Europe, she added.
Iceland's Grimsvotn volcano erupted late Saturday, sending ash plumes 17 kilometers into the sky and sparking worries of a repeat of events last year, when the eruption of the Eyjafjallajokull volcano in April spewed into the atmosphere clouds of ash that drifted over much of Europe. Tens of thousands of flights were canceled and the travel plans of millions were disrupted.
A part of Danish airspace was closed from early Tuesday, said Danish airspace surveillance unit Naviair. "At the moment only a small offshore area over the North Sea is affected by the airspace closure, and only up to a height of six kilometers," Naviair spokeswoman Camilla Hegnsborg told Dow Jones Newswires.
"The airlines can merely fly above the affected area, so for the time being there are no consequences to passenger traffic from the airspace closure," Hegnsborg said. Naviair didn't rule out wider restrictions later in the day as the ash cloud drifted further into Scandinavian airspace.
Scotland's main international airports in Glasgow and Edinburgh said they anticipated disruption Tuesday, and cancellations extended as far south as Newcastle in northern England.
British Airways and easyJet PLC (ESYJY, EZJ.LN) said services to Scottish airports including Glasgow, Edinburgh and Aberdeen remained canceled until later Tuesday. Transatlantic traffic continued, but journeys were subject to delays of up to half an hour as flights were re-routed to avoid affected areas, said a spokesman for British Airways, which is part of International Consolidated Airlines Group SA (IAG.LN).
Aer Lingus Group PLC (EIL1.DB) said it had consulted its engine manufacturers and made a decision not to fly in Scottish airspace based on meteorological conditions and the forecast concentration levels of ash dust.
Oil and gas companies like BP PLC (BP), Norway's Statoil ASA (STL.OS, STO) and ConocoPhillips (COP), which use helicopters to ferry workers to and from offshore facilities, said some flights had been halted, but production was unaffected. Bristow Helicopters, which operates flights to U.K. offshore oil and gas platforms in the North Sea, said up to 20 of its flights had been canceled Tuesday morning, affecting approximately 350 oil workers. Some flights were expected to depart Tuesday afternoon if weather conditions improved.
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