There will be no flights from Bulgaria to Western Europe on Tuesday while flights to the east and to the south parts of the Continent will be allowed.

The weather situation will be analyzed every six hours to decide which flight zones should be open or closed.

This announcement was made on Monday by Bulgaria’s Deputy Transport Minister Kamen Kichev.

“Bulgaria is currently trying to find more buses and trains to transport those Bulgarians that had been left stranded in Western Europe due to flight cancellations”, explained Kichev.

EU transport ministers held a video conference on Monday afternoon to discuss the air travel crisis caused by a volcano’s ash cloud in Europe’s sky.

During the emergency talks a decision was reached that European transport ministers would work in close cooperation to secure progressive opening of the European air space as weather conditions become favorable, as well as coordinate their actions and decisions.

The extraordinary meeting of EU transport ministers by video conference was called by the Spanish Minister of Public Works José Blanco in an attempt to resolve the air crisis caused by the volcanic ash cloud.

Sixty-three thousand flights have been canceled throughout Europe as a result of the volcanic air pollution. The flight bans came amid fears that the ash - a mixture of glass, sand and rock particles - can seriously damage aircraft engines. A total of 313 airports had been paralyzed by the restrictions and the global backlog had affected more than 6.8 million travelers.

Most of Bulgaria’s air space remained open on Monday except for a small area over the southeastern Bulgarian city of Silistra.

However, in just four days an overall of 142 flights to Sofia Airport have been canceled with losses amounting to EU 250 000.

In addition to this, Bulgarian airlines were incurred losses worth tens of millions of euro due to the suspended flights across Europe.