Holy sh!t….

US pop star Whitney Houston was forced to take a car ferry from Britain to Ireland for a concert after her flight was cancelled.

It's the end of the world as we know it…

What's all this bollocks about 'businesses losing millions'?….do they assume we live in a perfect world where nothing unusual ever happens?

That anyone in Ireland wants to see Whitney is indeed an epic catastrophe

Iceland can't afford to pay us back the dosh they owe in Krona – so they're using ash instead. It's worth slightly more. 🙂

It's OK everyone, as of Wednesday morning everything will be back to normal:
I have a Geography fieldtrip which I desparately don't want to attend, which I fly to on Wednesday, I'm certain that the volcano/god/whatever will have learned of this and make sure everything's fine just in time for me to fly. Grrrrrr 👿

Sod the poor icelandic farmers and all the people stranded in airports, selfish me wants at least another week of ashy sooty firey vengeance.

Which viking god should I offend to ensure this mess continues?

Got my 75 year old Dad flying over thursday for my graduation ceremony, poor bugger has waited 41 years for me to get a degree and has to fly halfway round the world to se my capping ceremony and now Iceland is buggering things up. its a mad mad mad world.

slimtubing – I was in a similar situation except a family emergency meant my parents couldn't attend. At Leeds, at least, you can cancel right up until the morning of the ceremony without difficulty and they will move you to the next one (in six months).

I assume other universities are the same.

What's all this bollocks about 'businesses losing millions'?….do they assume we live in a perfect world where nothing unusual ever happens?

Roses are imported to the UK by air from Kenya. If you're a Kenyan rose farmer, all your product just died, and if you're a florist, you'll have had nae roses to sell.

I'm more than a bit ambivalent about how sustainable I think that arrangement is but, err, yeah – that's an example of money lost. There'll be loads of others.

Eh up, things are moving here in Stockholm…

I've checked out of the airport hotel and am now checked in one of the city centre ones. So I'm (a) ever so slightly closer to home but (b, and more importantly) closer to a wider choice of better bars.

c) Is your phone working properly yet?

I arrived home at 2am this morning after a 37hour 20min journey from Sitges in Spain to the West Midlands, with a big detour in France as we changed ferry from Dunkerque to Roscoff, and had to drive from Plymouth to Heathrow and onto Birmingham airport…. 😕

Comfy digs, expenses, Munich beer festival. I'm not enjoying this at all.

I have a First class flight too LA booked for tomorrow evening, I really hope something changes.

Britain has extended a ban on most flights in its airspace until at least 1900 local time on Monday (1800 GMT).

The knock on effect of all the cancelled flights will be horrendous. How long to clear the backlog/flights getting back to normal?

Still hoping that my re-booked flights for saturday will be OK. that's a 9 day delay. Honestly folks it sound like fun but BA have told us that we are on our own from tomorrow and this is after getting to the gate desk. They were about to put the first of us on the 'plane before delaying then cancelling the flight.

i wasn't supposed to fly anywhere and the volcano has cost me just under a grand in cancelled work

I shall ride my bike instead

Comfy digs, expenses, Munich beer festival. I'm not enjoying this at all.

Comfy digs, expenses, Stockholm in the sunshine. Me neither.

Although there's not much point having a wife and kids if you don't get to see them.

i wasn't supposed to fly anywhere and the volcano has cost me just under a grand in cancelled work

Are you a Kenyan pea packer?

😆

My wife is still in Lusaka (Zambia), she was due to fly home from a school trip Thursday morning and her bags where already on the plain when it was cancelled, BA are picking up the tab as far as she's been told.

i wasn't supposed to fly anywhere and the volcano has cost me just under a grand in cancelled work

Just to balance that a bit I was a due to travel to Djibouti on Wednesday to do a job
The win, win for me is I hate the 'kin place & they're still going to pay me for it 🙂

about to find out if they will pay me despite the cancellation. can't argue the toss with them too much as the overall loss of work would be too great if we fell out 🙁

and the irony is that the job was for a major manufacturer of jet engines

Stuck in Kuala Lumpur since Friday with wife and 3 kids, option of a flight to Rome tomorrow but think I will wait it out. It's cost me plenty so far.
EV

They're starting to open airports tomorrow – as far South as NE England

The wife texted from Zambia earlier, they've been told to be ready at six hours notice. She may be home tomorrow, I'd better tidy the house just in case 😉

Stuck in Kuala Lumpur since Friday with wife and 3 kids, option of a flight to Rome tomorrow but think I will wait it out. It's cost me plenty so far.
EV

Is that you TKH?

SAS are currently showing this afternoon's Stockholm to Manchester flight as 'planned'. But my ticket is for Thursday am. I'm going to be keeping a close watch on things and, if flights start going, see if I can get on an earlier flight.

I need a haircut.

The knock on effect of all the cancelled flights will be horrendous. How long to clear the backlog/flights getting back to normal?

I'm stuck in Melbourne. Due to fly back today but no boarding for UK-bound flights. I'd rather be here than Dubai but the next available seat is mid-May… So, there must be quite a backlog in Dubai. Could be worse: 27 degrees, cold Coopers in the fridge.

And I'm stuck in Santa Cruz, California. I was due to fly on Wednesday, so I might either be one of the first ones to fly, or if it's canceled, then I might be here for another week or more. I'm managing to live pretty cheaply, though if the flight's canceled, it's going to start costing more in car rental (and buying people beers for letting me stay on their sofas…)

I wouldn't mind it either way, I can do a reasonable amount of work here if I'm stuck, and I probably should be good for sofa space for a bit, but it's the uncertainty that's an arse.

Apart from an intended trip out to Berlin on Friday which I assume isn't going to happen I'm finding it very pleasant at the moment with no flights into or out of Heathrow. I'm not looking forward to the 24 hour flying on the first full day of operations – bloody planes.

Currently in Gran Canaria, meant to have an interview on Thursday morning. Hopefully worse case I would be back by Monday as meant to start a new job.

I am meant to be flying tomorrow, we shall see,

I had a text from the wife at 10:17, saying that she was just about to board the plane in Lusaka, but she didn't no where they would be landing 🙄

do they assume we live in a perfect world where nothing unusual ever happens?

This is a bit more unusual than usual though 😀

Good point 🙂
But like the 'lost revenue' in the winter, if nature stops you from doing something then you never had the money in the first place!

if nature stops you from doing something then you never had the money in the first place!

I guess it's like if you're self employed and break you leg, you are loosing money because you can't earn money and you still need to pay the mortgage and feed the kids.

The airlines have no revenue at the moment, but they still need to pay staff, interest payments, insurance and all the other fixed cost which you pay whether you're operating or not. So you do lose money in a very real sense.

The wife finally landed at Heathrow just before 01:00 this morning, after stopping at Barcelona for a while, to re-fuel. The school sent the minibus to pick them up and she arrived home at 05:45 😀
Just one small problem, all the luggage is still in Lusaka, as the plane was too heavy to fly in the midday heat and they where given the choice 50 people get off, or leave the luggage 🙄

Just got back to sunny South Wales this morning.

I was stuck In Wroclaw (Poland) right at the beginning of this ash last Thursday.

Stayed in Wroclaw all weekend but decided to travel by train across Poland / Germany / France to Calais.

Bit od an epic journey, but could not get a ticket on the Eurostar though the Channel tunnel for love nor money. So my ticket only took me to Calais, where I would have had to get off the Eurostar.

I asked the staff if I could stay on the Eurostar and pay the extra, to my surprise they said yes, and wouldn't charge me anything either.

So I travelled into London late last night, got up early – Paddington to South Wales this morning.

I flew to Poland week last Monday for a 2 -3 day business trip……..

Home now, exhausted.

Home.