Most flights between Europe and North America will be delayed on Saturday due to the spreading cloud of volcanic ash stretching across much of the northern Atlantic, the European flight control agency said. Flights will have to be rerouted north over Greenland or south over Spain to avoid the 1,200-miles (2,000-kilometer) -long cloud stretching from Iceland to northern Spain, Eurocontrol said. This will increase flying times by about an hour in either direction. «We assume that basically most of the trans-Atlantic flights will have to be rerouted on Saturday,» Eurocontrol spokeswoman Kyla Evans said. «We expect substantial delays because of that.» Approximately 600 airliners make the oceanic crossing every day. Around 40 percent will be rerouted southward and the rest will skirt Iceland from the north. The plume of ash, which also forced the closure of half-a-dozen regional airports in northern Spain on Saturday, is expected to expand into southern France during the day, carried along by Atlantic winds. Spain's main international airports of Madrid and Barcelona were expected to remain open. «During the day, the area affected by volcanic ash is expected to extend from Iceland, south to Portugal and possibly as far east as Barcelona and Marseille,» a Eurocontrol advisory was quoted as saying by the Associated Press.
