Tens of thousands of travellers due to fly to or from Sicily’s busiest airport, Catania, have seen their flights diverted or cancelled due to the eruption of Etna.
An ash plume from the 3,357m volcano, which is the most active in Europe, spread across eastern part of the island.
Catania airport was due to handle 235 flights on Monday according to aviation data experts Cirium. But it closed after the arrival of a flight from Casablanca at 2.38am local time on Monday.
The airport is about 50km south of Etna.
The 6.30am easyJet flight from London Gatwick to Catania is set to depart at 2pm and will fly to Comiso airport, which is 150km from Etna in southeast Sicily. The estimated arrival time is 6.05pm – over seven hours behind schedule.