Good news for travellers as ash cloud threat lifts

AIRLINES are expected to operate as normal for the rest of the week as weather patterns pushed a volcanic ash cloud into north-east Europe.

The Irish Aviation Authority (IAA) said it had data from 300,000 flights over the last month to refine and potentially reduce the size of no-fly zones around the plume.

“We’ve got so much data now coming in we can refine the model a lot better and better determine the borders of high concentrations of ash,” an IAA spokesman said.