UK Immigration and disruption caused by Volcanic Ash

UK airports opened again at 22:00 on Tuesday 20 April 2010. Due to the Volcanic Eruption in Iceland and the resulting volcanic ash clouds for almost a whole week there was little or no air travel in Europe.

UK Immigration has announced that they are trying to minimise delay in the processing of visa applications. Because of recent flight cancellations couriers there have been delays in couriers transporting passports and visa applications to and from UK UKBA processing centres in Europe.

UKBA has stated in their recent news report that the following visa processing centres may continue to experience delays:

• Warsaw – Visa applications are processed from Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Austria, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria. There may be a small delay in the processing of visa applications.


• Stockholm - Visa applications from Norway and Finland may be affected.


• Norway – All applications from 15 to 21 April 2010 are delayed by up to a week. Applications from 22 April 2010 should be dealt within normal processing times.


• Finland - It is expected that visa processing will be delayed by up to one week.


• UK - Settlement visa applications from Algeria and Pakistani settlement applications have been affected.


• There may be delays at the UKBA visa processing centre in Belgrade. This would affect UK visa applications from Montenegro, Croatia and Slovenia.

As already mentioned by UKBA those who have overstayed in the UK due to the recent volcanic eruption will be looked on sympathetically by UKBA.