Volcanic ash delays - opinions

[5Foot5]

My sister and her family went to Cyprus at Easter and were due to fly back last Thursday (15th April) i.e. the day the volcano went off.

Obviously they got delayed but fortunately they had somewhere to stay as a relative has a villa there.

Now that the restrictions have been lifted we assumed they would be home in a few days. However, she texted last night to say that the earliest that Monarch could fly them home was 1st May! And this apparently is a special flight put on for the castaways.

This sounds a bit unreasonable to me given that airports are open again. Surely if they are putting on a special flight they should do it a bit earlier than that.

I think I would be tempted to ask for my money back and try to get back by some other means. However, I don't know what is typical here.

Anyone else know of any similar situations?

It is one thing to have an extended holiday but her DH is presumably having to miss work and her kids are all missing school and are in year 10.

Not very surprised tbh with you and I do not think Monarch are acting tardily here. I have heard of others being similarly affected both and Europe and further afield.

Although airspace is now open the closure of the skies has created a huge backlog which will take some considerable time to clear.

All airlines are filling any spare seats on return flights with those stranded abroad. Passengers were away and had inbound flights already booked on 21 April (fist day UK airspace open) travelled on those flights they had booked (ie were not bumped off for stranded passengers). And the same will have happened for the next day for example. Any spare seats would have been booked for stranded passengers.

Tour Operators who own airlines (ie Monarch, Virgin Holidays) I expect, will have given their holiday customers (ie those on package holidays) priority while also taking into consideration individual passengers needs who require priority (ie for medical needs etc).

It is not unreasonable. It's unfortunate for everyone. This goes beyond stranded passengers. Many businesses have had huge financial losses due to the disruption, they won't be getting a refund from anyone.

5Foot5 - she could see if she can book an alternative earlier flight with another airline and apply for a refund for the un-used sector (inbound flight) from Monarch.

It sounds unreasonable to me. Air New Zealand has been scheduling 2-3 extra flights a day between London and NZ to get stranded passengers back to their homes.

If MOnarch is a charter airline I guess the situation might be different though. In her case I would ask for my money back and try to get via a different airline if possible.

I'm not surprised. We were stuck in Marrakech, due to fly home on the 19th. The earliest flight we could book was Thurs, 29th - luckily for us, we got home Thursday, 22nd as my husband visited the airport the night before and got our name on a standby list (Easyjet). We were very relieved to get home, as nice as Marrakech was, we didn't fancy another week with two young children. I also have a friend currently stuck in Kenya, she was due home on Fri,16th April and has had no luck with standby seats - she is booked on a flight 1st May.

We did investigate 'over land' options, involving train to Tangiers (11 hrs), ferry to Spain, hire car, petrol, tolls, hotels, channel crossing, train in UK. We figured we would spend at least £2K which our travel insurance would not cover. Easyjet had put us up in a hotel, full board - so we took the easy, least expensive option.

I'm in Saudi Arabia and DC1 and 2 came out for Easter, were due back on the 18th April and have been stranded since. Despite phoning the airlines every day they still maintain that the earliest they can get them on a flight back to the UK is Tuesday 27th by which time they will have missed 7 days of school (8 for DD as they have saturday school) and DS will have missed a mock exam.

We have lots of friends with kids stranded here and lots more friends in the UK who are waiting to get back. Many are being told May at the earliest but what is appalling is that several have been told that if they pay extra they can go earlier.

A friend flew back here this morning and originally was told she couldn't change her date as her ticket wasn't flexible. She actually got to the departure gate at LHR before the airports shut that first Thursday. For a week she was told May would be the earliest but after phoning numerous times she managed to get on the flight that got her back today. Funny old thing, when she walked up and down the cabin there were 6 empty seats in business class (other friends who were due to fly business was told it was full) and half of the economy cabin was empty.

Bloody ridiculous bearing in mind so many people are still waiting to travel

Ds1's teacher was stuck in Cyprus, too, all week...which I thought was odd because the HT was in America and managed to get back last Weds. (she flew to Barcelona then drove or trained it back from there)

Cyprus is much closer - what about a flight to Spain then train or boat?

We were stuck in Orlando. Due to fly home with Virgin last Sunday (18th) and given a return date of May 1st.

We arrived home today having flown to Boston (at own expense) and then from there to London.

Total nightmare. Virgin almost impossible to contact and not helpful when we did get through. Our travel agent in the UK managed to find us the Boston flights after Virgin had insisted that all flights from there were completely full until 1/5. In Boston they said that they've had availability since Wednesday!!

We were stranded in Greece, were due to fly home on the 15th, the day the volcanoe went off. We eventually ended up flying to Rome and managed to book a flight from there to the UK and arrived here sat night. When we were trying to book our flights from Rome we were told by all the airlines there were no seats back til next week, unless we wanted to pay £600+ per person.

We had almost given up when a lady at Alitalia somehow managed to find us 4 seats on Saturday at £200 per person which we decided to pay as DH could not miss another week off work. How she found those seats when we had already asked at Alitalia and been told nothing til next week I don't know.

And even worse was that once we were on the flight, we were surrounded by empty seats, I counted at least 15 near me. And i knew there were many people still stranded in Rome as all the trains were also fully booked til next week as we also looked into coming home by train.