Geez yojimbo, what sort of a wuss are you anyway? Just friggin swim. 
According to that excuse of a “newspaper” the Sunday Express it’s all the fault of our government all those people are stranded abroad.
Headline:-
VOLCANIC ASH: BROWN ABANDONS THE ONE MILLION BRITONS STRANDED
First paragraph:-
DESPERATE Britons stranded around the world by the volcanic ash cloud faced more misery last night as the crisis deepened and the Government came under fire for failing to act.
Second paragraph:-
*As experts warned the impact of the volcano could last for months, there were calls for Cobra, the Government’s emergency response unit, to swing into action to co-ordinate a rescue. But a million British Easter holidaymakers face another night away from home.
*
Of course the paper offers no solutions of how all those people could be got home by the government. Perhaps “beam me up Scotty”
Giant gliders that have no engines to clog up. The obvious answer, of course. (That they don’t actually exist has never stopped that bastion of journalism before.)
My boyfriend has to fly back to the UK on Thursday - I’ve been reassuring him that The Cloud Of Death can’t possibly last until then, and of course it’ll be fine. Now I see the news talking about continuing chaos into the middle of next week, and I begin to think he may have been right to worry…
Oh yes, that “cloud of death”.
This from yesterdays Express:
“PEOPLE were warned to stay indoors last night as the deadly cloud of volcanic ash that has paralysed air travel began falling on the UK.”
It seems that torch-bearing mobs of European airline companies are advancing on the headquarters of various meteorological bureaus, demanding to know whether this extremely costly flight ban is actually necessary. KLM, Lufthansa and others have sent up brave pilots who have returned safely to Earth with no reported problems due to volcanic ash. I sense a coming clash between the forces of bureaucracy and the forces of commerce, if the weather and the volcanic activity persist. My money would be on the forces of commerce. Expect to see commercial flights resume in the next couple of days regardless of what Met Offices say.
You know, if the test flights have shown no damage I am, on a certain level, OK with resuming flights (as if my approval had anything to do with all this! ) but I would have two concerns:
-
If the ash cloud DOES get thick enough to be hazardous then a new warning will be ignored under the assumption that it might be another over-reaction
-
If the problems are spotty - that is, where the test flights went was OK at that time, but due to shifting conditions you have an airliner full of passengers fly through a cloud thick enough to kill airplane engines and scare the crap out of a lot of people. Or worse yet, kill a lot of people. Or even worse yet, have it happen to multiple airplanes at the same time.
I am so glad to not have to make a call like that one.
I know someone who was due to present a paper at a conference in Nice, France on Tuesday. She received funding from the university, (Master’s student), to cover part of the flight and the entrance fee for the conference. (Both, I believe, non refundable.) If she doesn’t get to the conference she has to pay back that money. As of now, her flight from Toronto to London, England is canceled. But not her flight from, London to Nice.
Worse still, she was due to, after the conference, connect with her fella who is on tour with a band in Europe, for a couple of days in Paris in the springtime. Her whole world went from, “Whee, I’m gonna see my fella and Paris, present at a prestigious conference!” (After months of planning, scheduling, and waiting to hear if it was possible, mind.) To, “Holy crap, I could miss the conference, miss my fella, (timing is everything), and end up having to pay back a whole lot of money!”
Poor thing, my heart goes out to her. Please, please let me know if anyone has any suggestions, ideas, or just good thoughts to send her way.
Now is the time of the zeppelin!
Indeed! I am actually quite disappointed that no one has revealed a bunch of old top-secret hangars full of armed zeppelins from WWI. Or hovercraft, perhaps? And what about that old Soviet plane that was designed to fly 20 ft above the ocean? Sure could have been put to good use now.
She should keep trying to get a refund from the airlines, and appeal to the university to forgive her paying back funding, or at least accept whatever she can get from the airlines, due to extraordinary and impossible to foresee circumstances. Because it never hurts to ask in these situations. It might work.
And of course I send good thoughts and best wishes.
Ah, damn, I was actually going to PM you to see how things were going - I knew it was around now that she was due to come over! There isn’t a lot she can do but hope the airports re-open, as far as I know - the airlines are pushing hard for it to happen sooner rather than later, so she might get lucky. It’s next week, isn’t it, her conference? I’ll keep my fingers crossed for her.
The flights might be refundable, given the circumstances - it would be worth asking the airline about, if they don’t fly.
Thanks for the good wishes! She was due to speak on Tuesday and she has been attempting to reach the airlines, but, as you can imagine, things are clogged up badly. What’s going to do her in, is that the second leg of the journey, London to Nice, hasn’t been canceled, as yet.
We’re both thinking the conference, being international, may get rearranged to accommodate people experiencing difficulties arriving on time. Of course, you’re right, she can certainly plead special circumstances, it never hurts to ask.
I’m still hoping things come together, as unlikely as it seems. She was over for dinner last night and trying to stay positive. She has put so much effort into all of this I hate to see it slip from her grasp when it was all so close.
Keep up the good thoughts, please, every little bit helps, somehow, I’m sure.
Speaking as a corporate travel agent (who is working on a frickin’ Sunday!) there are few if any airlines that aren’t refunding even a non-refundable ticket for this crisis.
As annoying as it is for you to be working Sunday I hope at least some of the people you deal with are appreciative of your efforts.
(I expect some of them express their… frustration at you as well. I’m sure that is quite unpleasant)
I agree. I had a non-refundable ticket, and I had the option of getting a refund or rescheduling the whole trip (including return trip, 10 days from now) without charge.
Best news I’ve heard all day, I’ll be sure to pass it along pronto. Thanks!
A friend of mine is stranded in Russia with his Lufthansa plane.
You know it’s bad when an airline pilot wishes he could just take the three day train transit…
Many private pilots at our airfield south of Frankfurt took the opportunity to do low passes over EDDF, for which clearances are rarely available. I heard some were turned back because the airspace was overcrowded with Cessnas 
Video of a motorglider over EDDF
My uncle asked me if I could pick him up near Bonn and fly him to Berlin tomorrow morning with a small plane, but alas I haven’t got the time…
Yesterday driving up from the south coast all I saw in the sky was a load of gliders - and a private jet, flying very low.
Anyone know what the story is with private jets and clearance?
Just goes to remind you that this is not our planet; we are just renters here and could be evicted at any moment.
Hmmm…If the moon dips really low, I wonder what singed moon smells like?