Stranger

Thinking about the current situation, and the longer term, i.e., rest of the summer/remainder of the year.

First, it seems this volcano be be behaving like this for quite a while, at best on and off. Second, dominant winds are from the north-west, which is precisely what's needed for the ashes to affect most of Europe.

So it may be that at best, for the remainder of the summer/year, we'll have a situation whereby we have crises like the current ones separated by intervals during which either the volcano behaves for a change, or the winds blow north, or due east, or west.

Point being then that perhaps the airlines should put in lace a contingency plan whereby they should have alternate destinations possibly further south, that can be activated/deactivated on a short notice?

Choice potentially being between a succession of crises like the current one, or something like that. For instance, some combination of NCE/MRS/BCN could be valid alternates to Paris? FCO or MXP or on a good day ZRH to FRA?

RCyyz

I'm not sure it would be that simple. AFAIK, landing rights start with a political process that involves negotiations between nations. Now presumably Canada and the various European States already have the proper agreements in place, but that might not be true for all airports in Europe. For example, AC flies YYZ - FRA but not YYZ - TXL. This could be for economic reasons, or it could be for legal ones. I don't know which it is.

Secondly, assuming the legalities are in place, there's the practical aspect of flying from Canada to somewhere else in Europe. This means recalculating fuel requirements and adjusting capacity accordingly. I don't imagine this to be a straightforward task, but obviously it's do-able.

But perhaps the biggest aspect here is logistics. It takes x thousand litres of fuel to keep an airplane going, and x thousand litres of water to fill the tanks, and x hundreds of kilos of food to feed the pax. All this requires agreements to be signed with private companies. Obviously a contract signed for the next 3 years will yield better price concessions than one signed for 2 months.

So the ability to turn destinations on and off is likely limited by a number of factors.

And lastly, this volcano just keeps going and going so that cloud gets bigger and bigger. It's hard to plan contingencies when the problem is a dust cloud that's subject to winds and an eruption that may keep going or may end in the next minute or two.

767300ER

Scheduled to fly out of CDG tomorrow, not very optmistic at this point. Last night started to work on plan B. Called AC and they could not offer anything at this point the flight still showing as scheduled.

I saw there was still seats available from FCO on AC891 Wednesday and grabbed a seat Happy to have done it because it it now showing full.

If Flights are cancelled tomorrow again I'll start planning my way down to FCO.
Hopefully airspace won't close in that area also. SNCF is also running a strike really helping the sitiuation here

Will make my final call at the end of day today after AC make announcement for tomorrow and after re-viewing my options again.

Could be a long week!

Guy Betsy

Well, you could fly from YYZ to HKG to FCO...

BTW, which is what I am considering doing the opposite!

I'm stuck in Norway at the moment... and am considering going by road/ferry/train as far south as possible to maybe Turkey. Then from there fly to HK and then eventually Vancouver in May. Ok, the cloud may dissapate by then, or it might not.

that_guy

Count me in as being stuck as well. I'm on my return leg from NYC - FRA, and am stuck in YUL.

Next seat out is on next Friday, so can anyone tell me what I can convince AC to do in the meantime? They told me to forget about being rebooked on LH, I even asked about MS, or if they can put me via other airports that might take a different course (MEX?), but no dice.

At least it's not a bad place to be stranded.

Also, does my booking.com nonrefundable booking end up as a loss, since I booked a hotel in FRA on their site and this is a rather uh, exceptional circumstance.

767300ER

Well that could be a plan
I am scheduled to fly OUT of CDG Sunday , so same issue... getting back home...
One day at a time

Wings100

We are in Venice for 2 days till Monday scheduled to fly to Munich and then to YYZ

Munich and FRA still closed. Venice and Rome now shut as well

Yes, it could be a long week

servus

Hi fellow FTers !

I'm based in FRA. As you all know FRA is temporarily closed as any other airport within Germany. No reliable info on how long the closure will last but at least until 04/18/2010 - 02:00 am. *TO BE EXTENDED FOR UP TO 72 MORE HOURS ! So this might be also the time frame for any AC flight to / from Germany.

For everybody planning going to / via German airspace, they just showed a forecast on German TV. This is the first time something link this happened, since Eurocontrol was founded, so they have no real data to make any reliable predication. Also I would like to recommend not only to think about how to get home asap, but also bearing in mind your safety. Have a look at this post, found by tomh009 http://www.flightglobal.com/articles...-volcanic.html

If you are in need of a "cheap" hotel in FRA, or any suggestion what to do meanwhile, or look for alternative travel suggestions feel free to PM me. I'll do my very best to help you out. The airport is already crowded with 1000s of people sleeping on cots. No fun place to spend several hours / days or days.

Good luck to everyone, have a safe way home!

nchinetti

I am stuck in London ... my side trip to Malta earlier in the week was cancelled also. I am suppose to fly back to YUL today (via ZRH) but that has been rebooked for Monday. Not such a bad thing to be stuck in London ... going to a Fulham match this afternoon

Seat13F_AC_CRJ

Brother made it to Paris this morning by train, but no seats on SNCF to BCN until Thursday. No rental cars to be found in the city. He is trying bus now. He has a BCN-EWR seat with CO on Monday.
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Seat13F_AC_CRJ

How are you getting from CDG to FCO? If you have access to a car, my brother may want a lift as far as NCE or somewhere which gets him closer to BCN.
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Freedom55

Am presently in BKK scheduled to fly BKK-VIE-YYZ with Austrian Airlines on the 19th. Austrian airspace is closed and the VIE-BKK-VIE flight for the 18/19th is likely to be cancelled.

I am flying on an Aeroplan reward ticket. In he event the flight is cancelled who do I contact for re-booking, AC or OS? Both the AC and OS offices in BKK won't be open until Monday morning.

Seat13F_AC_CRJ

I would contact AE (or AC) now and try to be routed home across the Pacific. Call the Canadian telephone numbers direct using Canada direct or skype.
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SYM

I am in FRA, rebooked on 873 (FRA-YYZ) on Monday. It feels like I've been dealing with this forever, but now that I think about it I was only supposed to fly home yesterday (Perhaps it feels that way because Thursday was spent racing around Belgium trying to get to FRA, which I managed to do successfully on the last long distance bus of the night, but of course by then FRA was already closing, and finding a hotel that night was an ordeal - wish I had known about servus' offer)

I'll have a pretty good sense of whether there is any chance of that flight operating by late Sunday night, when I see if 872 (YYZ-FRA) is operating. At the moment it is. If they cancel it, do you think I should rebook FRA-YYZ for later in the week or try to rebook elsewhere (perhaps FCO-YYZ) and hit the road south?

I realize the situation is unprecedented and there is no way anyone has the information to answer my question definitively, but I'm curious what FTers would recommend (and won't have time to get your opinions if I wait till the situation unfolds). Are there issues I'm not seeing?

airbus320

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