Australia's Qantas Airways grounded all flights on Sunday and then extended the ban until Tuesday afternoon, as the Icelandic cloud continued to paralyse European airports.

"And we're still not optimistic of being able to resume them from Tuesday onwards," said Qantas group executive David Epstein, urging passengers stuck at Asian transit points to come home.

"It would be far more sensible to wait it out in Australia," he said.

Volcanic ash hanging over northern Europe since Thursday has caused unprecedented disruption, throwing millions of travellers into disarray and causing heavy economic losses.

At Singapore's Changi airport, a major Asian hub, 34 flights were cancelled on Sunday, taking the total to nearly 120. In South Korea, Korean Air and Asian Airlines axed another 28 services between them.

"As at 1100 hours (0300 GMT) today, 34 flights due to depart or arrive today have been cancelled," a Changi airport spokeswoman said.

The airport and airlines have set aside special areas for stranded passengers to eat and sleep and are trying to provide them with free meals, sleeping bags and even tours of the city.

The top Chinese carriers, Air China and China Southern Airlines, cancelled most flights to Europe, while China Southern also put services on hold, state media said. Hong Kong's airport said about 40 flights were affected.

The cancellations have left hundreds of thousands of travellers in limbo, including 12,500 Qantas passengers alone, and have left airlines counting the costs of reimbursements and free accommodation.

Thai Airways president Piyasvasti Amranand told AFP that his airline was losing an estimated 100 million baht (three million dollars) per day with the grounding of flights to nine European cities.

"The volcano has led to cancellations of about 22 flights per day, affecting 6,000 passengers per day," Piyasvasti said. "At this moment we have 15,000 stranded in Bangkok and Europe altogether."

Thousands of people were stranded at Bangkok's international Suvarnabhumi Airport, deputy general manager Narongchai Tanadchangsaeng said.

"Some of them are sleeping at corners of the airport," he told AFP.

However the crisis has thrown up some heart-warming tales such as in New Zealand, where passengers unable to return home were offered accommodation by local families.

"It is quite nice people in New Zealand have rallied around to put their hands up to help these interrupted travellers. It's marvellous," said Tourist Auckland chief executive Graeme Osborne.

He said some of the tourists were "at the end of their wick, had run out of money and at their wits' ends with what to do with themselves until they could get out of the place".

In one case, a couple from a remote village in England were put up by another couple from the same place.

"There have been some really nice stories," Osborne said.

del.icio.us	Digg	Reddit
YahooMyWeb	Google	Facebook