Question - what course of action is Emirates asking the pax to take, in response to cancelled flights (ash cloud)?

I'll tell you why I'm asking - in Europe, some carriers have been repeatedly advising pax to re-book or cancel themselves during the incident. I just had a week of this. Today's flight is cancelled - re-book onto tomorrow's flight (or cancel and get full refund); that flight gets cancelled, re-book onto the next day, and so on, consecutively for days. Presumably if you don't do this, then you will be last in the queue when the ban is finally lifted.

The onus is on passenger self-care. This may clash with the passenger expectation eg. "the airline will look after me" when the ban is lifted. There may be nothing till May 15th, and airline will just say "not our problem, we told you to re-book".

So - how is EK handling it?

To my surprise EK just let me book a new flight to DXB, departing next Monday. I'd expected these to be blacked out while they repatriate stranded pax. Maybe they'll take my money, and bump me when the time comes.

There's at least a good chance that flights will be running in a week's time. If there are seats available, it would be strange that any carrier would not make them available for sale.

After flight disruptions, passengers holding confirmed bookings for the operating flights will have priority. Those on standby will have to wait until they are offered an open seat on the next available flight.

last Saturday EK was denying boarding to all pax heading to europe. There was a laundry list of flights that were displayed on a notice at the check in counter. And people ( mostly pissed off people were being handed forms - not sure what they were ). The staff there ( all contract agents ) were being understanding and helpful, one guy actually helped a few people with suggestions to fly in to FCO, MXP , VCE i.e. cancel their existing booking and rebook then catch trains. Not sure if anyone took the options.

Either way I figured that EK was denying boarding because it makes financial sense for them. If they leave the pax stranded in DXB halfway through the journey they will be liable to pay for hotels etc.

so did you cancel and book a brand new flight, or simply make a change to your current booking?

Neither, I didn't have any booking with EK. Sorry for any confusion. I just made a new one though, departing next week. I'm just a brand new passenger trying to work out whether repatriation of stranded pax will have any bearing on my booking, as and when it all gets moving again. In my world I have a confirmed, brand new ticket so I'm expecting to go.