Millions of stranded¹ travellers face further air chaos² as the volcanic³ ash from Iceland that has closed most of Europe's airspace continues to spread.

瑞典火山爆发所产生的火山灰已蔓延至欧洲大部分地区，导致数以百万计的旅客被困在机场，并且航班延迟可能持续更长时间。

Fofecast scope of ash up to 20,000ft

An estimated three-quarters of flights were cancelled on Saturday. About 20 countries closed their airspace - some have extended flight bans into Monday.

Scientists say the Icelandic volcano activity shows no sign of abating⁴（废除，减轻） .

Dutch airline KLM and German airline Lufthansa have carried out test flights to see if it is safe for planes to fly.

Britain has extended a ban on most flights in its airspace until at least 1800 GMT Sunday, air authorities have said.

KLM said its plane, a Boeing 737, had reached its maximum operating altitude of about 13km in the skies over the Netherlands, and there had been no problems during the flight.

The aircraft and its engines were being inspected for possible damage. After the results of that technical inspection⁵ the airline hopes to get permission from the aviation authorities（民航当局） to start up operations again.

Germany's Lufthansa said it flew several planes to Frankfurt from Munich.

A spokesman said: "All airplanes have been inspected on arrival in Frankfurt but there was no damage to the cockpit（驾驶员座舱） windows or fuselage and no impact on the engines."

Earlier, a spokesman for the international airline industry said: "We don't see the light at the end of the tunnel yet."

Icelandic geologist⁶ Magnus Tumi Gudmundsson told the Associated Press news agency: "It's the magma（岩浆，糊剂） mixing with the water that creates the explosivity. Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be an end in sight."

Graeme Leitch, a meteorologist（气象学者） at Britain's National Weather Service, said light winds and high pressure over Europe meant the cloud was unlikely to be dispersed⁷（分散，传播） soon.

"We don't expect a great deal of change over the next few days," he told AP.

The International Air Transport Association (IATA) predicted little or no improvement on Sunday.

"Right now through most of Europe we do not see many flights moving at all," spokesman Steve Lott told AFP news agency.

Airlines are losing some £130m ($200m) a day in an unprecedented⁸（空前的） shutdown of commercial air travel, the IATA says.

Eurocontrol, which co-ordinates air traffic control in 38 nations, said it expected 17,000 flights to be cancelled across Europe on Saturday, from a total of 22,000 on a normal day.