I appreciate the frustration of cancelled flights, of delays, of the fear of missing major family events but a niggling thought at the back of my mind led me to think that the “tales of woe” might sound just a bit less than catastrophic.
I was reminded of when my daughter was stuck in Sweden for over a week by the cancellation of flights all over Europe due to the “ash cloud” of about 15 years ago . She was lucky she hadn’t reached the airport so could sofa surf with the parents of a colleague from the theatre where she had been working, otherwise she’d have been sleeping on a bench at the airport as all hotel rooms in the vicinity were full. (Getting back overland without a car was not really possible.)
Remember it? It was down to an unpronounceable and unspellable volcano in Iceland erupting
Wikipedia
Beginning on 14 April 2010, the eruption entered a second phase and created an ash cloud that led to the closure of most of the European IFR airspace from 15 until 20 April 2010. Consequently, a very high proportion of flights within, to, and from Europe were cancelled, creating the highest level of air travel disruption since the Second World War
Anyhoo, I was reading this morning of some travellers who missed two days off a 4 week holiday to Australia, a girl who missed a day off a week’s holiday to visit her boyfriend and so on
They were like, you might have to be in the hotel all weekend, because we don’t know when Heathrow is going to open up,” she said. “Honestly, when they put me in the cab to go to the hotel, I was about to cry “
and I thought how we really do take “easy” travel for granted these days. It wasn’t exactly the Titanic disaster was it?
I'm not a pheasant plucker....
