The travel industry has welcomed the reopening of UK airspace but said there was a huge amount of work to be done before normal service could be resumed.
Agents and operators said the focus was now on bringing home customers who had been stranded abroad during the air ban, which was imposed last Thursday after a cloud of volcanic ash from Iceland drifted over the UK.
Abta chairman John McEwan said he was “relieved and delighted” that flying had resumed.
He said: “They key priority now is to repatriate all of those people still stranded and then get back to business as usual. This industry is very resilient and the response to the crisis from Abta members, both tour operators and travel agents, has been superb.
“No doubt there will be lessons to be learned, but for the moment let’s concentrate on getting people home and fulfilling customers’ future travel needs.”
Aito chairman Derek Moore said he was happy to see the airports opening, but said it would take several days to get people back from abroad.
“This hasn’t really changed the situation for tour operators and there are still a lot of people stranded abroad, but at least we can see an end in sight.
“The heartening thing has been the cooperation between the different Aito members.”
Christian Cull, communications director for Tui UK & Ireland, said the operator was working hard to get back to normal.
He said: “For now, we look forward: forward to getting delayed customers back home, over the next 48 hours or so; forward to returning to some sort of normality; and forward to taking thousands of customers on holiday who have stayed loyal and rescheduled.”
Cosmos managing director Stuart Jackson said the operator had 11,000 customers abroad and would be operating six recovery flights today, from Sharm el Sheikh, Goa, Mombasa and Tobago and Grenada.
Cosmos has operated 16 coaches since Monday back from Madrid, the Algarve, Alicante and Malaga.
He said: “We are trying to get services back to normal at the same time as repatriating customers. Hopefully that will be within days.”