Icelandic Volcano eruption shuts down European Air Travel

[whomario]

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE63G1HP20100417

Ash Cloud Chokes Air Travel Across Europe : NPR

Do you guys across the big pond get much news on that ? Any of my fellow Euros being bothered by it ?

Pretty amazing/scary to see that basically all air travel (2/3 of it, but the ones going often only regional connections) of a continent gets shut down by a natural cause like that.

hundreds of millions (and that number might be low, for german air travel agency´s alone the estimate is 150 mio a day) down the drain every day for the air travel agencies, travel stores and econonomy not being able to deliver or get delivered their goods.

Alternative public transportation is way over capacity (was on a train to and from Frankfurt to meet a friend today and it wasn´t pretty, now i know how a japanese subway must feel ...), the roads are slammed here

Pretty heavy stuff if you are connected financially (very good friend of mine works in a travel agency and they´ve been giving out refunds and cancelling orders like crazy.

Could go on for weeks, too if the weather stays constant and/or the volcano keeps on spitting out new ash.

Couple neat story´s coming out of it though as well, like John Cleese (Monty Python) taking a cab from Oslo to Brussels when his plane couldn´t go and he also couldn´t get seats reserved on trains (roughly 5000 dollars is the rate, if you are wondering )

some impressive pictures :

[Pumpy Tudors]

So which basketball game were you watching when the news alert broke in?

[whomario]

Originally Posted by Pumpy Tudors

So which basketball game were you watching when the news alert broke in?

local under 12 league, nice little game with amazing talent level for dribbling a ball of your foot. Those little buggers had that down


I´ll be sure to tone it down once you guys start discussing HS football strategy come fall

[Young Drachma]

At least they were smart enough not to send any planes up in that, I guess.

[heybrad]

I never thought I'd be affected by this, but...

I brought my family over for vacation on Tuesday and I'll be running the Brighton marathon tomorrow. We're supposed to fly back on April 25th. Keep your fingers crossed that this gets worked out as I'm totally freaked out by the idea of air travel continually being shut down.

On a side note... we're heading to Paris after the marathon on Monday and then back to London on Thursday for the final days. Should be fun (if I can ignore the ash cloud).

[whomario]

Originally Posted by heybrad

we're heading to Paris after the marathon on Monday and then back to London on Thursday for the final days. Should be fun (if I can ignore the ash cloud).

how are you travelling, car ? If not, have you reserved seats yet (train f.e.) ? If not i´d highly recommend doing so, if you go by car-ferry it´d be a good idea to reserve that as well !

[Eaglesfan27]

To answer the original question, it was front page on Msnbc.com 2 or 3 days ago when it started and I've read stuff about it each day. I haven't seen much coverage on the local news station though.

[heybrad]

We've got tickets on the Eurostar train from London to Paris and back so we're set there. Most people told me we could just buy the tickets when we got over here, but we reserved anyway. I guess that turned out to be a good thing.

[Lathum]

Looks like my Sister in Law who lives in London but is in New York for work will be stuck. She is supposed to fly back today. The good thing for her is her parents live in New Jersey so she isn't in any dire straights or anything.

[sterlingice]

Originally Posted by Eaglesfan27

To answer the original question, it was front page on Msnbc.com 2 or 3 days ago when it started and I've read stuff about it each day. I haven't seen much coverage on the local news station though.

Yeah, and it's led NPR's news and been at the top of Yahoo news for a couple of days now (well, that and the Goldman Sachs story)

SI

[Greyroofoo]

Screw Iceland. We should should just nuke the volcano. I have no idea what would happen but it should produce some pretty pictures.

[3ric]

One of my wife's best friends was in Atlanta, GA for a conference at the Hyatt Regency. Because of the volcano, she's still there... grounded since Friday and no idea when she's able to get home to husband and two kids.

[FrogMan]

a coworker of main was over in Sweden for some big Volvo meeting and was unable to fly back on Friday. No news of him since then. Didn't know about the "possibly for weeks" though...

FM

[terpkristin]

Hmmm I'm supposed to go to Germany in 2 weeks for a meeting at one of our suppliers. Hopefully this will have cleared up by then, but I won't hold my breath.

/tk

[Buccaneer]

So much for Iceland being a "green" country.

[whomario]

Originally Posted by FrogMan

a coworker of main was over in Sweden for some big Volvo meeting and was unable to fly back on Friday. No news of him since then. Didn't know about the "possibly for weeks" though...

FM

it´s simply that no one can estimate how long the volcano keeps spitting out ash at this rate. Given that the weather/wind conditions stay roughly the same, as long as he does we are screwed.
Right now the current ash-cloud isn´t dissolving because of very stabil weather (a bit of rain would help, but after weeks of bad weather we´ve just now hit a stretch of good, sunny weather, go figure) anyway.

There´s been a few transport/test flight without passengers today by Lufthansa and dutch airline KLM, basically Lufthansa moving planes from munich to Frankfurt by flying in lower altitude and "visual level" and going uo to 8000 metres, but KLM actually testing it at regular altitude as well claiming there´s been no damage or problems.
Will test more tomorrow and then ask for permission to make regular flights.

Might very well be that it´s not as big a deal as it´s made out to be, but the way i see it if only 1% of the planes show a problem you might not find it in the tests and end up having 5 planes crash when you start flying through it.
(and lowe altitude isn´t a solution with a full fleet either)
Really wouldn´t want to have to make that call.

Plus there´s also the fear that the current eruptions set off a more severe reaction from a nearby volcano that´s much bigger. Not nescessarily a big(ger) problem for airtravel, but for Iceland obviously ...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8627720.stm

[gstelmack]

Originally Posted by Buccaneer

So much for Iceland being a "green" country.

I figure this is Mother Nature getting ticked off at all the "man is causing global warming" talk and decided to remind Al Gore who is REALLY queen around here

[M GO BLUE!!!]

The lightning photos are amazing.

Iceland Volcano Pictures: Lightning Adds Flash to Ash

[gstelmack]

Originally Posted by SteveBollea

I realize it's a nice joke, but it's also not even close to true.

You focused nicely on CO2, which remains the true tragedy of all the global warming talk...

(ignoring all the other crap put into the atmosphere and environment)

[whomario]

Originally Posted by M GO BLUE!!!

The lightning photos are amazing.

Iceland Volcano Pictures: Lightning Adds Flash to Ash

yeah i saw some photos of it yesterday on CNN, but those are propably even better. Just wow

Air Travel has opened almost unrestricted today, will be still some days before everything goes as scheduled though.

[sterlingice]

Originally Posted by M GO BLUE!!!

The lightning photos are amazing.

Iceland Volcano Pictures: Lightning Adds Flash to Ash

Agreed- great pics. I wish there were larger images, tho.

SI

[whomario]

Originally Posted by sterlingice

Agreed- great pics. I wish there were larger images, tho.

SI

More from Eyjafjallajokull - The Big Picture - Boston.com

most of those NG pics are on there in bigger resolution (and looking just as great) plus a couple more stunning ones (but also a few showing how hard it´s hitting the people living near the volcano)

[whomario]

Airspace above the UK has been partially closed again due to new ash in the air : Volcanic Ash: parts of UK airspace shut as ash heads south (includes video)

[AlexB]

I missed this thread originally - my return flight Athens-London was one of the casulaties, so this was my ad hoc return journey....

Day 1 - find out flight is cancelled. Got to Athens airport, buy ticket for flight Athens-Rome for the next morning

Day 2 - fly to Rome. Train to Rome Termini train station. 5 hour queue to get train tickets to Paris leaving just before midnight the following day.

Day 3 - day in Rome! Woot! Get on sleeper train to Genova at 23.50

Day 4 - trains: Genova - Ventimiglia, then Ventimiglia - Nice. Half a day in Nice. Train Nice to Paris. Arrive in Paris c.11pm

Day 5 - train Paris - Rouen. Replacement bus service Rouen - Dieppe. Half a day in Dieppe. Ferry Dieppe - Newhaven. Trains Newhaven - Lewes, Lewes - Gatwick Airport. Pick up car. 90 minute drive home, Get home 2am.

I really enjoyed it though - would have preferred not to have queued for 5 hours in Rome, but other than that it was great.

Met some cool people (most of the journey with an Oxford University fellow; the TGV journey was also spent with an antiques carpet dealer & his family, who hinted at very bohemian pasts and had really interesting stories regardless; the owner of a modern furniture shop on the Kings Road in Chelsea)

The views from the train of the Italian/French coasts were fantastic (Cannes, Monte Carlo, Amalfi, etc), the TGV journey was great, really enjoyed it. I even plan to go back to this stretch of coast on my own terms in the not too distant future, probably again by train!

Cost about £600 all in to get home. I might get some/all of it back, but even if not it was a great experience, and it was less than I would have spent for 5 normal days of holiday!

[MIJB#19]

The fortune of being misfortunous, JRS?

[AlexB]

Indeed - never would have gone there other than for this reason.

[kiwiLB57]

I was meant to fly to New Zealand on 19 April to see the family.

It was quite an important trip as I hadn't been home from the UK back to NZ for two and a half years and there was a big reunion planned where I intended to tell them that I am being deployed to Afghanistan later this year.

I eventually flew out on 21 April after airspace was reopened late at night on 20 April. Good old Air New Zealand put on some extra "refugee" flights out of London Heathrow to get everyone home. They were one of the few airlines doing long-haul hours after the restrictions were lifted. They are a small airline and typically only do two flights a day from London so turn up with four aircraft ready to go was impressive. I was at home in Hertfordshire planning a train trip to Italy and a flight out of Milan via Singapore to get back home when the call came through from Air New Zealand staff in NZ: "Mate, can you get to Heathrow? We have a seat for ya!". Was a great call to receive.

Was a fun flight home, the airline scraped up some ex-steward management types to steward the planes and borrowed food off a collection of different airlines (mine was Lufthansa, and the person next to me got a BMI meal). They had also borrowed stacks of booze. Everybody got really drunk on the flight as they were so happy to be getting out of London (no offence London). We flew via LA and the American LA transit staff were very amused by a large bunch of drunk kiwis singing songs in the transit lounge.

When we got to Auckland (New Zealand) there were loads of Air NZ staff waiting for us playing guitar and singing and handing out chocolate bars to welcome us home. The airport was packed with local press and all the TV stations had news reporters there (three). Yours truly was on TV being interviewed about the trip. It was like we were on the last bird out of Saigon or something.

Cheers,

kiwiLB57

[sterlingice]

kiwiLB57- that was an awesome story

SI

[bhlloy]

Very cool story. Air New Zealand has become by far my favorite transatlantic airline over the last few years and I now fly with them whenever they are close to being the cheapest option (which is usually the case)

We fly back from Heathrow to LAX on Wednesday - hoping that the ashcloud doesn't affect too much over the next couple of days.

[kiwiLB57]

It would have been cooler had I been stuck in New Zealand due to a resurgent ash cloud and just waited out till mobilisation!

Unfortunately I am back at my desk staring out the window watching planes fly down the Thames towards Heathrow.

Cheers,

kiwiLB57

[Sgran]

Our main tour (World War 2 tour | History tour | Band of Brothers tour | Trip to Europe | Travel to Europe | Beyond Band of Brothers) begins in England, so yeah, we're affected. Not to mention the thorny British Airways strike that may or may not take place.

[AlexB]

So finally I have received notice of a refund of about £350 - 2/3 of my claim and about 60% of the extra money I spent getting back home in April. Basically they refunded hotels, the extra flight I took and the food/drink that I kept receipts for.

But they have not refunded the overland travel or the ferry:

Whilst The Regulation entitles passengers to be re-routed at the earliest
available opportunity it does stipulate that our obligations to re-routing are
to be on a ‘comparable’ basis, that is to say, air travel. This means that
easyJet is unable, and not obligated, to agree to meet any costs associated
with overland transport or by sea.

I'm in two minds about it - think I'll probably just bank it and stay quiet as tbh I wasn't realistically expecting anything, but metaphorically stamped my feet, copied all e-mails into the AUC (and BBC's Watchdog!) and they came back with this offer.

What irks me a little is the fact that they part refunded - all or nothing I would understand, but not classing land/sea travel as refundable is a little off IMO as there were no other options, and one of the nights was on an overnight train, so no hotel costs there...

But all in all worth a few e-mails, and I think the extra effort required to try and get the rest will be much higher and quite possibly fruitless.

[sterlingice]

Bummer

SI

[AlexB]

Feel like I should have updated this sooner - I did get the refund on the train & ferry travel too in the end

[sterlingice]

Still can't pronounce the volcano's name

SI

[Critch]

I assumed the bump meant it had blown it's top again. Seemed like good timing.

[bhlloy]

Holy shit ten years ago. Sadly while Air New Zealand is still my favorite airline to fly back to the UK, it hasn’t been remotely near to being cheapest for a long time.

[BillyNYC]

This is fun. 10 years ago, I was on vacation in Paris and got "trapped" there a week due to the volcano. (Wasn't that bad. Hotel let me stay at same rate, as no one was coming in anyway. Took train to Brussels for a day; also went to Versailles.)

Now I have a job offer in Germany that I can't get to right now. (They're figuring out how to let me work remotely.)

April 2010: Trapped in Europe, unable to get to my job in US.
April 2020: Trapped in US, unable to get to my job in Europe.

[AlexB]

Originally Posted by Critch

I assumed the bump meant it had blown it's top again. Seemed like good timing.

MIJB linked to it in the Krakatoa thread, and after reading through, I thought I should alleviate the concerns of all those who have undoubtedly been worried about me potentially being £200 out of pocket for 10 years