After nearly a week of chronic disruption due to a volcanic eruption in Iceland, it now looks as if the world’s airline industry can start to return to some semblance of normality. Last night, the UK’s airspace was reopened and a British Airways passenger jet inbound from Vancouver was permitted to land at Heathrow. German officials say that they plan to resume flights as of today and planes have already been taking off from Amsterdam, Madrid and Paris.

The World Meteorological Organisation said that it is confident that the worst of the impact of volcanic ash in the atmosphere is over. The WMO thinks that the activity of the volcano is changing away from producing plumes of ash and moving to a stage where more lava is being ejected.

Chief of the Aeronautical Meteorology Division at the World Meteorological Organisation, Herbert Puempel, said that lava flows were not necessarily good for people living in the vicinity of the volcano, but were a good sign for the world’s airlines.

Puempel also said that prevailing weather conditions predicted for later in the week would further help to disperse the ash cloud. He said that as a low pressure system moves over Iceland, rain should start to fall. Any ash which is below the rainclouds should then quickly be washed out of the atmosphere.

Meteorologists are also hoping that a change in wind direction will start to push any remaining ash northwards towards the pole and away from Europe. Puempel said that by the weekend, as long as there are no eruptions from other volcanoes, the situation was looking very positive.