Accra, April 26, GNA - Airlines at the Kotoka International Airport (KIA) which were affected by the recent closure of the air-space over Europe, have assured and offered to fly all passengers who were grounded to their various destinations.

"The situation is due to circumstances which were beyond any one's control. From the look of things, I believe all waiting passengers would have joined their various flights within a few days ", an airline official told the Ghana News Agency.

The recent closure of European airports for about a week, created a back-log of passengers who are now waiting to embark on their booked flights.

A number of these passengers who spoke to the Ghana News Agency, said they felt frustrated at the situation adding, they had received no concrete information on when they could board their flights.

The airline officials explained that because they had many more passengers to ferry over this time round, it was definitely going to take a little while for all the passengers to embark upon their flights. Mean while, since the ban on flights in and out of Europe was lifted, the European airlines, mainly KLM, British Airways, Alitalia and Lufthanza have begun their normal flights to the KIA.

The first of these flights to arrive had much fewer passengers than usual.

Some of the passengers told the Ghana News Agency that they believed it was because many travelers were uncertain of their safety, although the skies had been officially declared safe.

At Aviance Ghana Ltd, which caters for the cargo section of the KIA, several food stuffs could not be exported as a result of the situation. Mr. Riis Onyame, Operations Manager, Aviance Ghana Ltd, told the Ghana News Agency that foods of the soil such as vegetables as well as fresh fruits were exported in their very fresh state. He said as a result of the situation, several of these fruits could not be exported because they had lost their freshness, causing heavy loss to exporters as well as farmers.

A source at Air-Ghana, operators of Cargolux, said over 250,000 dollars in export had been lost during the period. Exporters of fresh greens and vegetables at the cargo section said they had made heavy losses during the period. "The losses we have made run into millions of Ghana cedis," said one exporter to the GNA.

With the re-opening of the European air-space, fresh greens and vegetables could now be seen once more being packaged and prepared for export to the European markets.

The air-space in about 20 European countries was recently closed as a result of volcanic ash from Iceland.

The ash, a mixture of glass, sand and rock, it was feared, could damage aircraft engines. A BBC report estimated that affected airlines would have lost 200 million dollars a day during the period of the closure. 26-04-10