Stranded in Spain

When I first heard of a volcanic eruption in Iceland affecting some flights, I actually started laughing, for some reason I found it quite amusing. Until, my flight and many millions of other peoples flights were all cancelled, it was defientely not funny anymore. After 6 days of closed airspace in the UK and most of Europe, over 95,000 flights have been cancelled, leaving over 7 million europeans of them 200,000 brits stranded and costing the airline industry over $1.3 billion dollars (1.1 billion pounds).

Many airlines now have the task of taking the passengers were they want to go, and work through the chaos and backlog. Many airlines are also affected by several members of their staff being stranded in other locations, as well as aircrafts. The volcanic ash came at the worst time for britons, as schools and universities reopened after the easter break on Monday, and thousands of pupils and teachers are left stranded around the globe. Cambridge University has had to cancel exams as many of their students and staff are stuck abroad.

I could think of many worst places to be stuck, I was not very lucky with the weather the two weeks I was oriniginally supposed to be here. But this extra week of forced holiday has been absolutely amazing here in Barcelona. The sunny days and hot weather do make the wait a bit more pleasurable, however the worry to get back to lectures and normality persists. I walked down to the beach yesterday, as I knew many tourists would chose the beach on such a beautiful day, I spoke to some stranded tourists about their experience:

1) Harper family, South London -
" We were supposed to leave on Saturday, so we have now been here for 2 extra days, we are flying with British Airways and they gave us no help, absolutely nothing. They said we might be leaving on Thursday but it is not for sure. We called our jobs and spoke to our bosses, everybody os very understanding. We are enjoying the extra time we have, coming down to the beach as a family, there is nothing else we can do."

2) Mary and Peter, London -
" We had a scheduled flight last Thursday so we have been here for quite a while now. We flew with Easyjet and they have been extremely helpful. They gave us assistance for the first 3 or 4 days and placed us in a small hotel outside Barcelona, and paid for all our meals. However after that they said we were on our own. We have both made many times to the airport and the staff has been very helpful and tried to answer all our questions and give us advice and what we should do next. My teenaged daughter went for a school trip to Italy, and she managed to leave right before this whole mess, but now she is back in London and we are stranded here. She has to stay with friends until we manage to get back. The airline told us we might be lucky and leave on Thursday, but the way things are going I don't know for sure when we would be leaving, and we are running out of money, that is why the only thing we can do is simply sunbathe on the beach."

3) Martin and Olaf, Sweden -
" We live here so we have not been directly affected by the volcanic ash, I think however people are enjoying the extra time here and what better place to be stuck in than sunny Barcelona, much better than a cold country. I have a friend though that travelled to Andalusia and she couldn't get back here, but when she finally could she had a buy a plane ticket for over 500 pounds since all the trains and busses were fully booked."

4) Stacey and Vanessa, students in Barcelona originally from Minnesota and Philadelphia, USA -
"We went for a weekend to Munich and could not get back to Barcelona, this week was our last week at university before the summer break, so we desperetely needed to get back for our exams and deadlines. We decided to look for ground transportation, getting a train ticket was impossible so we looked for buses. There were so many people in our situation, so we also struggled to get a bus ticket. First we found one that would get us in Barcelona on Wednesday ( April 21st) but we needed to get here before that, so we found a bus from Frankfurt to Paris that cost us 40 euros, but since we could not get to Frankfurt we never got to get that bus. Then we paid for a hostel that was 20 euros each, but magically we found a bus on Sunday night that brought us back to Barcelona, it was like a student bus. Therefore we did not stay at the hostel, the bus cost us 105 euros each. It was very hard to get a bus and we also lost many days of our holiday looking for means of transportation and spending much more money than planned."

These stories are just a few out of millions of people stuck around the world, and in these current situations there is not much you can do. The UK has been using Spain and France as a hub for british citizens to return to the UK either by land or sea.

Tourists have not been the only ones affected by this ban, the Minsitry of Defence said last night that hundreds of troops were stuck in Cyprus after completing a six-month deployment to Afghanistan and were now returning to the UK by ferry or coach. Supermarkets also worry as the flight ban meant no imported goods could enter the country, this meant prices could rise if the ban persisted and supermarkets would have to find alternative british providers for flown in goods. According to the National Farmers Union (NFU) one third of the food we import could be produced in the UK.

Banks are also lifting charges and limitations to help stranded brits, two banks -Nat West and RBS- said they would be giving refunds to charges made on foreign ATM withdrawls and would also increase the limit on credit cards, so stranded tourists could pay for accomodation and food abroad.

Who ever knew all this disruption and chaos could be caused by a cloud. Maybe next time we will all be better prepared.