Icelandic Cloud of Airplane Death - anyone affected

[roddy]

For anyone who hasn't been paying attention to Europe, the entire continent's aviation industry has been grounded by Iceland's encore to the financial crisis, a giant cloud of volcano dust.

Anyone affected by this? Been sleeping at Shanghai Airport for three nights waiting to finally get home to Stockport? Sitting at home in Dundee when you're meant to be jetting over to Dalian? Tell us your tales of travel woe.

Link for the uninformed.

[skylee]

volcanic eruption -> ash clouds over europe -> closure of Heathrow -> important person can't come to Hong Kong on time to join an event -> last minute decision to postpone event to next week -> chaos in office to rearrange venues and inform like 200 people -> keeping fingers crossed that he will somehow manage to come here next week (wondering how)

[putonghua73]

Quite a number of friends on my FB [facebook] news-feed have been affected due to cancellation of flights. Most are stuck in the UK tearing their hair out that their holiday plans have gone up in smoke (bad pun) - one is still 'stuck' on holiday somewhere (Spain maybe?) unable to get back to the UK.

I due wonder whether they'll be able to claim on insurance, and whether some of the low-cost carriers e.g. (Sl)Easy Jet and Ryan Air, etc, will honour fares or claim under 'force majure' contract clause. Personally, I would think the latter as the cloud is outside the control of the carrier's.

Cheers

[skylee]

'force majure' contract clause

Acts of God - last week I read two different contracts drafted by different people and this seems to be the standard wording.

[HalaMadrid]

I was hoping to take a weekend trip from the UK to Germany (if there was a dirt-cheap fare--I still hadn't bought my ticket) but obviously didn't pursue it when I saw the news. Definitely disappointing. At the same time I can report that there are blue skies here in the UK without a hint of smoke/ash/dust from any volcanoes.

Putonghua, since to mentioned about the discount airlines. I had a friend with a ticket for Norway (Ryanair I believe but might have been EasyJet) two days ago. His flight was canceled but he did get a ticket refund.

[Shi Tong]

My dad just managed to leave for a business trip before all the airports were closed, but now I'm wondering how he's planning on coming back next Thursday.

He also has a planned flight to Rome the following week.

That will be fun.

[Scoobyqueen]

I was due to take a plane to Beijing today and my colleagues are stuck in Beijing. I will probably end up boarding the plane they will be arriving with.

[Daan]

Yeah, some friends are stuck in Beijing. They're saying the last eruption took almost a year, I believe. That'd mean they're not going home any time soon

[skylee]

but i suppose people can say take the eurostar from london to paris & then take trains to southern europe & then fly out from there, right? otherwise how can that important guy get to to our meetings in HK next week? headaches ~~~

[roddy]

If he can get the train tickets, the plane tickets, and isn't worried about Italian airspace being closed when he wants to come home, that's maybe an option. But if I was in the UK I'd be staying put for fear of not being able to get home, and I'm not even important.

Folks stuck in Beijing (or elsewhere in China) - are you getting any assistance from the airlines or embassies? I wouldn't imagine so, but there have got to be people running out of visas and money.

[Meng Lelan]

Yes, it's affecting me now that I'm searching for Chinese short stories about volcanoes for the Short Story of the Month selection. Guess there aren't any.

[renzhe]

The odd thing is that I haven't seen any of this ash up here. It's all over the news, but the sky is bluer than it's been in 10 years.

The traffic has collapsed in Germany, though. Trains are overloaded, as are buses and motorways, and most airports were shut down.

There was a report today about a German football team who planned to fly to Munich for a 1st league match today, but ended up having to pack the whole team onto a regular train instead. Then they stood the whole time (about 5 hrs).

[Scoobyqueen]

The odd thing is that I haven't seen any of this ash up here.

On Thursday, I saw the sun at sunset had turned a deep shade of red I have never seen before (in Montabaur area in Germany).

[chrix]

the ash is starting to sink slowly, you might get lucky and see it when it starts hitting your lungs. Right now I'm out of the ash's reach, but let's see what happens when I try to leave the US....

[adrianlondon]

Parents were due to visit me in Basel this weekend from London. Swiss Airlines. They changed their tickets for the same flights (ie same time and day of the week) next weekend. Hopefully it's cleared up by then.

[randall_flagg]

Not affected at all. But skies here in Europe are blue...its quite beautiful, actually.

Glad I made it back from the US just in time. Heard they are handing out free underwear at the international terminal the Frankfurt Airport. Isn't that something!

Good luck to all of you who are stuck/need to rearrange visits of imports guys to HK.

[Scoobyqueen]

But skies here in Europe are blue...

The same thing happened in the US just after 9 11 when there were no flights across the US for three days. Apparently the absence of condesnation trails made the sky appear more blue.

However, the incredibly red sunsets we see here are caused directly by the volcano ash.

but i suppose people can say take the eurostar from london to paris

There is a three to four day waiting list.

[anonymoose]

Maybe this'll provide the impetus for the London to Beijing rail line.

[Lugubert]

I had a train ticket for Copenhagen yesterday (sat 17) and the ticket to fly to Paris to spend a week in France with my almost daughter. Flight cancelled. Train for more than 20 hours isn't an option for me, and I didn't feel like driving for 16 hours. Who knows, perhaps the booked return flight from Marseilles will still be grounded at the time, which would be a worse problem.

[Lu]

A colleague is stuck in Taiwan, oldest brother's co-worker is stuck in Ethiopia, but personally I'm not affected. In a way I find it interesting to see how we thought we had it all under control, but here's a vulcano nobody's ever heard of before and all of a sudden it turns out that there are all kinds of things (holidays, important people at events) that we actually can't take for granted. But I feel sorry for people stuck at airports, or missing things that are important to them. For them it sucks.

Maybe this'll provide the impetus for the London to Beijing rail line.

I would love to see it have such an effect!

My youngest brother planned to go to the airport and offer taxi services (he was especially thinking of people who want to go to another country), until I informed him that black cabs are actually illegal. But if you know anyone who got stuck at Schiphol or wants to go to Holland, pm me :-)