Brussels:
As the European Union sought to streamline its response to contamination of its airspace, civil aviation authorities in Scotland and Ireland closed some airports for the second successive day on Wednesday because of volcanic ash drifting from Iceland.
Transport ministers from the European Union agreed on Tuesday to speed up plans to unify control over the region's airspace and to establish strict guidelines for when levels of contaminants such as volcanic ash in the atmosphere make it unsafe to fly.
But some ministers disagreed over whether there should be stricter guidelines in place before allowing governments to grant loans or other forms of state aid to airlines affected by the devastating shutdown of Europe's skies last month after the eruption of Iceland's Eyjafjallajokull volcano. Some European Union officials have expressed concern that generous aid packages could give some airlines an unfair advantage.
The unpredictability of the challenge in the skies has been illustrated this week. After a two-week respite from volcanic ash, a fresh plume drifted across Scotland and Ireland twice in as many days.
Britain's Civil Aviation announced 12 hours of closure of Scottish airspace in the west of the country starting at 7 am local time Wednesday. The authority said that while high ash concentrations existed near Edinburgh airport and in northern England, it expected those airports to remain open and the cloud was not expected to affect traffic in and out of London or the rest of southeast England.
Airports in Northern Ireland, including Belfast, and in the Irish Republic, were also ordered closed for varying periods throughout the day., starting at 8 am and spreading within hours to Dublin at 11 a.m. and other airports in the south-west in the afternoon.
The emergency meeting at the European Union's headquarters in Brussels came as the new plume prompted the cancellation of about 150 flights. According to the Volcanic Ash Advisory Center in London, the ash was not expected to reach continental Europe, at least through noon local time on Wednesday.
The transportation ministers gave their support to a proposal, made last month by the European Commission, to "fast track" plans to create, by the end of this year, a so-called European Network Manager with the authority to ground or reroute traffic when volcanic ash or other incidents posed a safety threat to aircraft.
But the extent of that manager's powers still would need to be decided in the coming months as part of a plan intended over time to integrate the region's national air traffic control systems into a so-called Single European Sky.
"We need a single European regulator for a single European sky," the union's transport commissioner, Siim Kallas, said at a news conference following the meeting. "This would not solve every problem, but it would mean a much faster coordinated response in a crisis."
Ultimate sovereignty over airspace still would rest with the European Union's 27 member states, Mr. Kallas said.
At the meeting, the ministers also agreed "without delay" to lay down rules on what levels of ash in the atmosphere should be considered dangerous to aircraft and called for the "immediate creation" of a crisis coordination group to handle future transport disruptions.
But ministers were unable to agree on whether to adopt additional guidelines on state aid for airlines.
Ministers also disagreed on whether airlines could temporarily defer the payments of some fees paid to air traffic authorities.
The International Air Transport Association estimated last month that the global airline industry lost roughly $1.7 billion in revenues during the six-day shutdown of European airspace. Of that total, it said about 70 percent had been borne by European carriers. The European Commission estimates that airports and tour operators lost hundreds of millions more.
The Icelandic ash cloud's return on Tuesday underscored the potential for further travel disruptions as Europe enters its peak summer travel season.
The disruption also spilled into Britain's national election campaign, the BBC reported, upsetting plans by David Cameron, the leader of the opposition Conservatives, to fly to Northern Ireland to campaign for Thursday's election.
Iceland's volcano started spewing larger amounts of ash four days ago and a changing wind blew it south, according to the Volcanic Ash Advisory Center in London. But the plume was not as big as last month's.
Volcanic ash, made up of fine particles of silicate, is dangerous for airplanes because it can damage jet engines.
José Blanco, the minister of public works for Spain, which holds the rotating European Union presidency, told reporters in Brussels that the disruptions caused by the volcanic ash cloud had placed the need for a unified European air traffic system in stark relief. Since the crisis, Europe had already "made more progress in two weeks than we have in years" on streamlining air traffic control, Mr. Blanco said.
After more than a decade of negotiations, the commission adopted a package of proposals in 2004 intended to integrate the region's air traffic control systems into the Single European Sky. The first phase of the plan envisions merging 36 national airspaces into nine "functional airspace blocs," beginning in 2012. Complete unification of European air traffic management would not be envisioned until at least 2020.