You know what? If I were a traveler, I would NOT take the word of airline companies that it’s safe to fly based on a few test flights. Nothing, but nothing, is so important that I’d risk my life on an airline company’s saying, “oh, we made it through a few test flights, we know it’s safe”. Uh-uh.
I didn’t see this mentioned here so just for the record, the last time Eyjafjallajoekull volcano erupted it began with a prominent local ashfall in December of 1821 and continued in varying stages of intensity until quieting in August of 1822. Sometime in 1823 it vented steam as Katla began erupting, then ceased altogether.
On the positive side it would appear the glacial melt water is no longer leaking into the crater, thus removing the steam source that was driving the ash to heights that could be transported for long distances.
Urgh, seriously. IATA is currently claiming that Eurocontrol was irresponsible because they shut down airspace based only on…get this…theory. I guess since a plane hasn’t crashed yet, then there’s no evidence that filling engines with sand can cause any harm whatsoever. Oh, and besides, we’re losing money over here, so give us cash too!
My intended career is in aviation safety. IATA and the airlines are showing me exactly why we need independent non-profit regulatory and safety-related bodies to manage the airline industry, because these people are clearly morons.
I’m affected by this, but as much of an inconvenience as it is, and as much as I appreciate how hard this is, financially, on the airlines, I do not want to get on a plane just because some pilots said it was ok. Maybe one plane had no problems, and there wasn’t a lot of ash, but how many flights will it take for that build up to become dangerous? Uh oh, I’m veering into scientific data collecting and theories again, so I should shut up before IATA accuses me of something!
LW is starting to fly, cargo flights now, passengers soon.
You guys go on ahead. I’ll wait until tomorrow. Sure it’s safe.
Thank you for looking to do that. Someone needs to.
Broomstick, thank you also, yeah, it gets frustrating, and i sometimes feel as if they think I’m the one who dropped the A-bomb into the crater. O well, others are very nice, I feel sorry for them.
She might see if she can change the flight to London to a flight to Madrid, and then get the train up, if flights to London remain closed. My understanding is that Spanish airports remain open, at the moment…
I took a cow-orker up to Stuttgart Airport today His flight was supposed to have been 18:41 to Milan, but we were fairly sure it was canceled. On the way to the airport we saw two decent sized jets take off - looked to me like 737s, though I’m not an expert.
Found that Stuttgart Airport was a ghost town. No cars coming or going, hardly anyone in the terminal, most of the counters shut, etc.
Star Alliance rep re-booked my colleague on the 14:05 flight tomorrow (Tuesday). We also asked about another colleague who is supposed to have a 9 am flight to Frankfurt, connecting to 1300 to Mumbai. She advised he take the train from Stuttgart to Frankfurt, since she wasn’t sure if they’d have equipment for his morning flight, and all of the morning flights are packed. LH is paying the train to Frankfurt, but she couldn’t give us a reservation for him to FRA. We’re currently trying to reserve him a seat on the Frankfurt train, and if his flight looks as if it won’t go he’ll take the train from STR to FRA.
It seems there is some optimism that some schedule will restart tomorrow.
Things look bad for my friend. She will not get away today. There is a slim chance, if things are in the air, she may be able to go by Thursday. But the conference is then over, the fella is back on tour and much of why she was so excited to go, in the first place, has passed. She cannot reschedule until some time in May. All those trapped passengers are booking up everything in sight on the chance planes will be in the air at some point soon. No doubt many will cancel, having made other travel arrangements, etc. Once the planes are in the air bunches of those reservations will open up as people have made numerous resos hoping one will come through. The earliest she could get into Madrid was also May.
She was looking to network/connect with the gurus in her field at this conference, make a name for herself and all. She worked so hard to make it happen, had all her ducks in a row and now it’s just an opportunity missed that isn’t going to come around again, poor thing.
She will get refunds for the air tickets, I expect. But the conference enrollment fee, deposit on rooms, rail pass will all end up costing her out of pocket. As someone about to get their Master’s degree she has mountains of student debt and no job, so you can imagine how low a blow this is to her.
I’m having her over for dinner tonight, as her place has been emptied of food in anticipation of being away. Think I’ll make her some brownies to cheer her up.
I know it’s just one story among thousands but it’s heartbreaking to watch someone who has worked so hard, is so deserving and came so close have it all yanked away from them when it was so very close. Sigh.
Friend of mine won an all-travel paid, five-star hotel, long weekend in Barcelona with two friends, with £500 each spending money, meant to be leaving last Saturday morning.
She comments, “oh well, at least I have some beer”.
I see planes! In the sky!
One of my colleagues was able to fly home yesterday. The other is scheduled today, and I hope he gets to go, he’s starting to get om my nerves. Also heard about one pair working here at our client that had been stuck in Taipei. They got home, iirc, Taipei - Bangkok - Singapore - Athens - Rome - Lake Como - someone’s father pick them up from Lake Como and drive them back to Germany. I may have missed one jump in there.
Two of my friends who went to Venice for a long weekend have no prospect of a flight out of the country until next Wednesday at the earliest. My friends who live in Hungary are driving to Italy today to collect them and give them somewhere to stay for a few days until they can get themselves a fligth back to the UK. Luckily they’d booked with sleazyjet so they’d done it as two single flights. They took a refund on the return flight and will use the cash to re-book themselves flights from Budapest instead.
Well planes are taking off from Luton now at a regular pace (our office is located in their flightpath)…it still doesn’t mean it’s all over yet - people with flights booked today get priority and all the ones stranded get fitted in wherever they can.
I’m seeing evidence of gaps in the supply chain now - some of the vegetables that are airfreighted in from places like Kenya and Chile are missing from the supermarket shelves - replaced with too much stock of whatever is left. Cucumbers are not available in Portsmouth!
My other colleague flew out today, from Stuttgart to Milan. His plane had 9 passengers with a capacity of 100+.
Other colleagues could not get out of LHR to Milan. They were scheduled on Alitalia; suspicion that they didn’t fly because of low demand.
I’m still in England, and will be until Sunday. I’ll have missed one final exam for my semester, though of the 4, it’s the easiest one to take during the next available exam session (probably December) since it’s pure math. I hope everything will go well on Sunday…my next exam is next Wednesday. I have some, but not all, of my materials here to study from, so I’m not as bad off as I could be.
The missing component for my husband’s work has made it to Paris, so he anticipates receiving it “soon” and being able to fly home on Sunday as well. Of course, Air Canada put us on separate flights - his is direct, mine is via Ottawa. We still get home at roughly the same time.
Still sunny here, and lots of beer as well, so it could be worse!
I was supposed to be flying to Melbourne (via Dubai) with Emirates on Tuesday (yesterday), but it was cancelled unfortunately. Luckily I managed to get through to them on the third call i made and was rescheduling the flight within minutes, choosing meals and seats etc all free of charge.
Massive relief. Only got to hope the skies are clear enough on Monday now. It would be rather unfortunate if Katla decided to join in the fun on that day.
Now to find out if this new plane I’m on has AC power outlets…
From Manchester. Nobody probably cares, but it was bugging me and I missed the edit window. :smack: The airport claimed they were opening in the morning on Tuesday. The night before I receive a text message from Emirates saying my flight was cancelled. Well confusing! I think one of the worst parts of this for most people is the whole not knowing what is being done/going to be done thing. Though to be fair I don’t suppose the airlines or the airports really knew either.
They should.
Well, according to the online booking management I’m either flying on this plane or this one. It does not specify whether it will be class 2 or class 3. Too bad there’s no decent portable power options out there. Laptop chargers only seem to be able to get 2-5 hours, which is nowhere near enough for me.