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Travel chaos continues in Europe
Hundreds of thousands of travelers remain stranded for a third day as flights stay canceled across northern Europe. Ash from an erupting volcano in Iceland continues to blow eastward and numerous countries have limited flights or have closed their airspace entirely.The following countries have no flights operating: Austria, Belgium, Bosnia-Hercegovina, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Latvia, Netherlands, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia, Sweden, Switzerland, Ukraine, and the United Kingdom.
These countries have limited service with severe delays and numerous cancellations: Belarus, Croatia, France, Italy, Lithuania, Norway, and Serbia.
Questions are arising about how this is going to affect an already struggling airline industry. Some sources are estimating that the airlines are losing $200 million a day, with several companies already talking about laying off employees or putting them on unpaid leave. There has been no public discussion of reducing executive bonuses.
The Eyjafjallajoekull volcano in southern Iceland is still spewing out ash, although Icelandic vulcanologists are saying at a lower rate. Clouds of ash are hazardous to jets because they can make their engines stall, as happened with two flights in the 1980s.
Ferries and trains such as the Eurostar are reporting record ticket sales as people look for other modes of transport.
As I mentioned in the post about delays on Friday, my wife Almudena, who took many of the best photos in my Ethiopia travel series, is trapped in the UK. Her story is typical of countless other travelers. On Friday, British Airways told her they had rescheduled her flight for Saturday morning, but a few hours later the flight was canceled. UK airspace is now closed until at least 1 am local time Sunday. So at the moment I'm a single dad, she's given up hope of getting to her meeting in Toronto and went to visit friends in Oxford, and our son is drawing pictures of mom flying over an erupting volcano. I have a feeling a lot of European kids are drawing pictures like that right now.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
BrianM Apr 17th 2010 12:44PM
What is with the executive bonus comment? Seriously how do you know that they were paid a bounus this week? And is the bonus budget even defined, is it tied to the overall profitability of the organization, and what is the entire budget for executive bonus's is it more or less than $200 Million per day? Oh wait you don't you're just being a prick who doesn't know crap about and of the financhial details, maybe they already cut them. Try responsible journalism next time and get some facts before spewing your crap. I personally have no love for the airline industry and I am not an executive where I work but executives would like nothing better than their organization to be profitable enough to give every employee big bonuses and raises, but your wife who is getting a room paid for by an airline that is not at fault is taking more money out of the airlines than the executive bonuses when you add up the number of people stranded.
Sean McLachlan Apr 17th 2010 12:46PM
A : If you had been paying attention to my posts, you'd know that BA isn't paying for my wife's room.
B: It's spelled "financial".
BrianM Apr 17th 2010 3:16PM
A. They did pay for the first night.
B. Yes I am a child of the spell check generation sorry about that, still you did not explain what you based the bonus comment on which was really the basis for the original comment and how it was relevant to the article, also sorry I lashed out as a personal attack, you probably are not a prick. I am a bit of one for saying it to begin with.
C. I am sorry your wife is stuck there, I have had some friends who have had luck getting ferries accross to France, then training it down to Madrid, or Barcelona in order to find a flight (Paris is so backlogged after 2 days they kept heading south)
allen Apr 17th 2010 2:25PM
This is interesting, post more often!
http://thetravelbbs.com
Sean McLachlan Apr 17th 2010 3:29PM
BrianM,
Wow! You are the first Random Angry Person (RAP) who has ever apologized for insulting a stranger on Gadling. And we get a lot of RAPs here. You just went way up in my estimation, and earned a full explanation rather than a brush off.
The reason for my comment was simple. Several airlines announced they may cut staff or wages because of this mess, but none of them mentioned cutting the regular annual bonuses executives make. I stated a fact, not an assumption like you said I did. If I had said "no executive bonuses will be cut" THAT would be an assumption, and irresponsible blogging.
You may feel that I'm taking the side of the workers by making a snide comment about rich executives at a time of financial trouble, but if I hadn't made the comment, I would have, by default, been taking the side of the executives. This is not a dry, supposedly "impartial" news outlet like CNN, FOX, or MSNBC. This is a blog. We're opinionated, snarky, and occasionally a little less than PC, and judging from our hit count, people like that.
So please continue reading Gadling for travel news written by people who won't get fired for saying what they think. That's real freedom of the press.