When the Eyjafjallajökull volcano on Iceland started erupting, all air traffic in Europe came to a halt. This video gives an impression of the amount of air traffic in Europe.

A visualisation of the northern European airspace returning to use after being closed due to volcanic ash. Due to varying ash density across Europe, the first flights can be seen in some areas on the 18th and by the 20th everywhere is open. Full screen recommended.

Airspace Rebooted from ItoWorld on Vimeo.

The flight data is courtesy of http://www.flightradar24.com and covers a large fraction of Europe. There are a few gaps (most noticeably France) and no coverage over the Atlantic, but the picture is still clear.

The map data is CC-by-SA http://www.openstreetmap.org and contributors.

This CC-by-SA visualisation was produced by http://www.itoworld.com with support from http://ideasintransit.org