Most major European airports have been closed as a plume of volcanic ash drifts south from Iceland across the continent, bringing travel chaos.
Air traffic suspensions are now in force in more than a dozen countries in an unprecedented move.UK air traffic control said "current forecasts show that the situation is worsening throughout Saturday".
Thousands of travellers are stranded and airlines are losing an estimated $200m each day.
"The knock-on effect of the volcanic ash plume over northern Europe is likely to disrupt European airspace for several days," said the Civil Air Navigation Services Organisation (Canso), a global association of air traffic control companies.
"Traffic will have to be reorganised and rerouted and flights replanned, all on a dynamic and quite unpredictable basis," it said in a statement.
Many countries and airlines have grounded fleets amid fears that the ash - a mixture of glass, sand and rock particles, drifting from 5,000ft (1,500 metres) - could be catastrophic to aircraft.
In some of the biggest disruption in commercial aviation history, a swathe of northern European sky was empty of aircraft on Friday.
About two-thirds of the 28,000 daily flights in the affected zone were cancelled, while only half the usual number of flights between Europe and North America operated.
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