Desperate Europeans seek routes home

Desperate European travellers stranded overseas struggled to find a way home, clamouring for information on flights into the continent’s few airports not closed by the dangerous cloud of ash from an Icelandic volcano.

Flights into Rome, Athens and Madrid became the new hot ticket at many international airports yesterday – but after three days of travel disruptions, the backlog of passengers meant many faced waiting lists of days, even weeks.

“We’ll take any flight to Europe,” said Dirk Maertens, 52, slumped against a railing at Bangkok’s international airport in Thailand alongside his wife and 16-year-old son.

The Maertens slept on plastic seats at the airport after their flight home to Belgium was cancelled.

They planned to camp out again on the off-chance that seats on the already-overbooked Thai Airways flight into Rome might open up.

Modern Europe has never seen such a travel disruption. Millions of passengers have had plans foiled or delayed. Around the world, anxious passengers have told stories of missed weddings, business deals and holidays because of the ominous plume, which could damage plane engines.

Some carriers, like Australia’s Qantas, put passengers up in hotels, but many did not, offering instead only to refund tickets or exchange them for later flights.

Dubai-based Emirates airline, the Middle East’s biggest carrier, said it was losing £6.5 million a day, including an estimated £650,000 a day just to provide hotels and meals to more than 5,000 passengers who were in transit when flights were cancelled last week.

Russia’s foreign ministry was organising round-the-clock consular services to arrange 72-hour visas for foreign passengers stuck at Moscow’s three airports.

While some airlines in Europe resorted to temporarily laying off staff to cope with lost revenue, Asian companies tried to find ways to keep as many flights as possible running.

Thai Airways, which said the disruption was costing it £2 million a day, was encouraging passengers whose flights from Bangkok were cancelled to travel instead to airports in southern Europe that were still open.

The airline scheduled extra flights to Rome and Madrid starting today after indefinitely cancelling flights to nine other European destinations.

India’s Jet Airways rerouted its flights to New York and Toronto via Athens. It was not servicing its routes to London or Brussels.

Qantas said it would continue an abbreviated flight schedule on today and tomorrow, allowing flights that would normally go from Australia to Europe via Asian cities to run – but only as far as the Asian stops.

The airline, however, warned passengers not to fly to Asia simply to wait for their connecting European flights to open.

But about 1,500 Qantas customers were stuck in Singapore, Bangkok and Hong Kong, spokeswoman Emma Kearns said. Another 400 international customers were stranded in Australia.

Travellers stranded in New York said it was nerve-wracking not to know when they could go home. Most of the budget-minded tourists having breakfast at the Chelsea International Hostel in Manhattan yesterday were waiting to learn when travel restrictions would be lifted.

Britons Lyndsey Janes and her husband Martin were heading to London after three weeks in Costa Rica when their four-hour stopover at Newark Liberty Airport in New Jersey turned into an indefinite wait.

“It’s every day, just waiting,” Mrs Janes said.

Mr Janes said he was considering buying a new laptop so he could work, but first they were going shopping for shoes; having planned for Costa Rica, the Janeses had only flip-flops.

Many travellers said the most frustrating part was the lack of information.

In Bangkok, British business manager Chris Coomber stood in a long line at the Emirates counter. He and his wife have been stranded in Thailand since Friday, and they have been told the first flight available isn’t until April 29.

“It hasn’t been handled well by the airlines,” said Mr Coomber, 53, a business development manager from Bournemouth, England. He complained that the airline had only one computer and staff member at its information counter, while empty check-in stations were still staffed.

“It’s a natural phenomenon. There’s not much you can do about it,” he said of the volcano.

“But I feel badly about how it’s been organised, the lack of information and the way the airlines have treated the people who can’t get back home.”

His wife Barbara, a teacher, was eager to get back to her class.