China Eastern Airlines resumed some flights to Europe on April 21, a week after ash from a volcanic eruption in Iceland halted air travel.

China Eastern resumed services between Shanghai and some European cities including Moscow, Frankfurt and Paris.

The airline had canceled 17 flights bound for London, Moscow, Frankfurt and Paris from April 15 to April 20, affecting about 8,000 passengers.

The carrier said it used bigger Airbus A346 and A343 models to transport as many stranded passengers as possible.

German airline Lufthansa resumed flights from Shanghai to Frankfurt on April 20. Other European carriers, including Air France, Virgin Atlantic, KLM and Aeroflot, resumed services between Shanghai and Europe on April 21. Finnair would resume services on April 22, the Shanghai Airport Authority said.

On April 20, Europe's air traffic slowly began to return to normal with almost half of all scheduled flights taking to the skies, but officials warned it could take weeks to clear the backlog of millions of passengers stranded since the volcano erupted on April 14.