UPDATEDLogistical nightmare begins

Belgrade Airport was deserted over the weekend

UPDATED: 22.15 CET

After several days of chaos, many airports are set to open today across Europe due to a clearing ash cloud created by a volcano in Iceland. All airports in the former Yugoslavia will be open today with flights to unaffected areas of Europe and beyond set to commence. The airlines have lost millions over the weekend and now face logistical problems of how to transport a backlog of passengers that did not find alternative transportation to their destinations.

Slovenia, which was the first EX-YU nation to close its airspace on Friday, opened its airspace at 20.10 CET on Sunday. However, Slovenia remains on the lookout as another cloud of ash is heading for the country. Nevertheless, the airspace will be open until Tuesday morning. Adria’s planned weekend charter flights took off last night. The airline has cancelled today’s and tomorrow's flights to London-Gatwick, Warsaw, Vienna, Frankfurt, Zurich, Amsterdam, Moscow and Paris. Adria is operating flights to Priština, Skopje, Moscow and Istanbul today.

Croatia Airlines has cancelled all international flights until 16.00 CET with the exception of regional flights to Sarajevo, Skopje and Rome. Dubrovnik, Pula and Split are set to operate as per normal from Zagreb. Spanair is managed to inaugurate its service from Barcelona to Zagreb this afternoon as initially planned (flight details available in new route launches section). Zagreb Airport was closed at 08.00 CET but was reopened an hour later. Other airports in Croatia are also open. Some airports in Croatia may be closed for several hours tonight due to the oncoming ash cloud from Slovenia, meteorologists predict. Croatia Airlines was due to transport 14.500 passengers since Thursday. The airline predicts that it has lost 2 million Euros since then, a press release reads.

Jat Airways will operate flights to all airports that are not affected by the ash cloud. Services to Athens, Podgorica and Rome were the first to depart this morning. Unlike some other EX-YU airlines, Jat has some luck as all of its aircraft are in Belgrade rather than being scattered across Europe.

Montenegro Airlines will today operate flights to Belgrade and Niš. Finally, B&H Airlines is only expected to operate its flight to Istanbul tonight.

So far Jat Airways and Croatia Airlines have offered refunds to passengers that have been affected by the weekend cancellations. Adria has offered to rebook passengers on to later flights.