As most of its airports return to normal today, Europe is counting the cost of the chaos caused by the Icelandic volcano.

Airlines claim the six-day flight ban has cost them 1.3 billion euros.

Spain’s Minister for Development, José Blanco, has said that he thinks it “probable” that the government will compensate the tourism industry for these losses.

Blanco said that the help would reach wider than the airlines alone, considering that the effects of the disruption had been “very important”.

The ban has hit Spain’s suffering tourism sector particularly hard, causing hotels to lose revenue during the key Easter period.

The EU has created a group to establish how to arrange economic compensation.

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