**There have been bitter recriminations over the almost week-long closure of large parts of European airspace because of volcanic ash from Iceland.**Airlines are seeking compensation from governments over the disruption, said to be the worst since World War II.
But scientists have said regulators had few options beyond a ban on flights.
Earlier, officials said air traffic in Europe would be back to “almost 100%” on Thursday, although an alert led Qantas to cancel a flight from London.
Tens of thousands of people remain stranded around the world as airlines restart services after the unprecedented paralysis.
‘No over-reaction’
Six days after the eruption of the Eyjafjallajokull volcano in Iceland triggered the first airspace closures, the International Air Transport Association said airlines had lost $1.7bn (£1.1bn).
KEY POINTSUK and European airports reopen for businessMany flights still cancelled or delayedAirlines begin to repatriate stranded passengers80% of European flights due to operateFlight disruptions cost airlines $1.7bn (£1.1bn)Icelandic volcano has lost 80% of its intensityUpdated: 17:36 BST, 21 April
Was the flight ban necessary?
How do the stranded get home?
Ash aftermath: Making a complaint
“For an industry that lost $9.4bn last year and was forecast to lose a further $2.8bn in 2010, this crisis is devastating,” IATA chief Giovanni Bisignani said. “Airspace was being closed based on theoretical models, not on facts.”
Mr Bisignani said the situation had been exacerbated by “poor decision-making” from governments and called on them to compensate airlines, something which the European Commission has said it is considering.
“I am the first one to say that this industry does not want or need bailouts. But this crisis is not the result of running our business badly,” he added.
“Governments should help carriers recover the cost of this disruption.”
Some airlines are also demanding changes to EU passenger compensation rules, which require them to provide accommodation for those prevented from flying.
Michael O’Leary, the chief executive of the low-cost carrier Ryanair, said it was “absurd” that his firm had to spend thousands of euros on someone whose ticket might have cost only a few euros.
Mr O’Leary said Ryanair would only reimburse travellers the original price of their air fare and no more, potentially setting up a clash with Ireland’s Commission for Aviation Regulation and the EU.
“We will look forward to seeing them in court because frankly I think this is a great opportunity for airlines to expose this nonsense.”
Virgin Group chairman Sir Richard Branson meanwhile told the BBC that he believed governments would be unlikely to impose a blanket ban again.
“I think if they’d sent up planes immediately to see whether the ash was actually too dangerous to fly through or to look for corridors where it wasn’t very thick, I think that we would have been back flying a lot sooner,” he said.
The bans were imposed because volcanic ash - a mixture of glass, sand and rock particles - can seriously damage jet engines.
The European decision to partially reopen airspace did not come until the fifth day of the crisis, when transport ministers met by teleconference.
The UK Transport Secretary, Lord Adonis, admitted that international safety regulators were too cautious in their handling of the crisis.
But Henri Gaudru, the president of the European Volcanological Society, said there had been few options beyond the flight ban.
“This was not an over-reaction. We… do not know enough about these clouds and what can happen to planes flying into them,” he told a news conference in Geneva.
Returning to normal
Earlier, the European air traffic agency Eurocontrol said it expected “almost 100%” of flights to operate in the continent on Thursday.
However, a fresh volcanic ash alert led Australian airline Qantas to cancel one flight out of London and delay another for 11 hours until early Thursday, infuriating passengers.
At London’s Heathrow airport, Europe’s busiest, traffic ran at 90% normal service on Wednesday. Many night flights are being allowed temporarily to help clear the backlog of stranded passengers.
Transatlantic services have returned to their normal level, with 338 flights arriving in Europe on Wednesday, according to Eurocontrol.
German airline Lufthansa said it would fly at full capacity by operating about 1,800 flights on Thursday, up from about 700 on Wednesday.
Air France said its long-haul flights were now departing as normal.
Denmark, Norway and Sweden have now lifted their no-fly bans.
Some airspace restrictions remain over Finland and some remote Scottish isles.
In Iceland, the Eyjafjallajokull volcano continues to erupt, but it is no longer spewing out ash into the atmosphere.
“There is much, much less ash production and the plume is low,” Gudrun Nina Petersen of the Icelandic Met Office said.
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