Should we just cancel?

[80sramfan]

another tidbit on the extra flights being added for those that are google challenged.

 

"We've never had a backlog like this before," said Laurie Price, director of aviation strategy at consultant Mott Macdonald.

Spain's main airline Iberia said it was using bigger planes and adding extra flights to help stranded passengers get to their destinations. Other airlines were hiring buses to help customers get home.

 

so far that's 4 airlines that we know of and I'm sure many more we don't know of

 

Asian carriers including Singapore Airlines Ltd., Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd. and Air China Ltd. have added extra flights

 

make that 5 as air new zealand has added xtra flights as well

[Zindy Lou]

The news is filled with second guessing.

 

http://www.salon.com/technology/ask_the_pilot/2010/04/20/iceland_volcano_airlines

[llamasocks]

This is probably the best advice on this thread.

 

Although there is that one poster that pulls all of his facts out of his ash.

 

LOL at sasset's profound comment. Thank you for bringing some levity/laughter to this thread.

 

Hoping that all of you who are affected by this, as I am, find a way to deal with it in a way that keeps your spirits up.

[gofish]

80sramfan we are on the same cruise.

I hope you are right about how fast it will return to normal. But if you had a Southampton cruise in the last week you could not get there from anywhere unless you were already on that island.

First time in 200 years for that volcano. Our Big Island volcano has been going off for 25 years straight. Most of the time not a problem in Honolulu but when the wind shifts we get the VOG.

I know the conditions for June are beyond predicting. If we cancel in the next couple weeks our loses are limited. If we hang in there the costs and hassles can skyrocket.

Can you really sell a booked cruise on ebay?

[terrierjohn]

Well it seems our worries are now over, the CAA has eventuallydecided that the risk was only tiny anyway and that all UK airports can now reopen, and unless there is a major catastrophic eruption things should continue to be OK for flying.

Now I'm not suggesting that 80sRamsfan had the correct info all along, but clearly the airline pressure has resulted in the CAA re-thinking their blanket ban. I just wonder who is going to reimburse the airlines for all their losses, obviously if Govt. bail outs are OK for banks that make monstous cock ups, then surely innocent airlines should equally be given funds to ensure they don't go under. ;)

After Cod wars, banking collapses and now volcanic ash, perhaps Iceland should be asked to make a large donation to the airline fighting fund.:rolleyes:

[sunvalley cruisers]

Please be aware that the French rail workers are on strike!

 

Sue

 

oh for pete's sake!

[mathgeek1978]

London, England (CNN) -- A British Airways flight from Vancouver, British Columbia, landed at London's Heathrow airport late Tuesday, the first commercial airliner to do so in five days after ash from a volcano in Iceland disrupted air travel across Europe.

 

Passengers aboard British Airways Flight 084 broke out in applause as the plane landed shortly before 10 p.m. (5 p.m. ET), just over an hour after Britain's Civil Aviation Authority announced that it would reopen British airspace.

 

No commercial flight had landed at Heathrow, one of the busiest airports in the world, since Thursday afternoon. All other British airports were also set to reopen at 10 p.m., Transport Secretary Lord Andrew Adonis said after the aviation authority's announcement.

 

Airspace will reopen in phases, and some "no-fly zones" will remain in place where concentrations of ash are at unsafe levels, the CAA said. The restrictions, however, will be much less than what commercial airliners faced in the past week.

 

NATS, the country's air traffic control agency, issued a statement late Tuesday saying that most restrictions on British airspace had been lifted "with the exception of an area over the northwest of Scotland which continues to be affected by a dense concentration of volcanic ash."

 

The flight from Vancouver was one of more than two dozen British Airways flights already in the air bound for London when the CAA announcement was made.

 

They took off hoping there would be a window of opportunity to land the planes at Heathrow or Gatwick airports, a company representative said.

 

The 25 planes took off from the West Coast of the United States, Africa, India and other locations in Asia. A 26th plane that had hoped to reach London was sent to Brussels, Belgium, instead, British Airways said.

 

"We are very pleased that the aviation authorities have opened U.K. airspace to enable us to begin in earnest the task of bringing our stranded customers home," British Airways said in a statement.

 

But the airline warned it would take "some considerable time" before it can get its full schedule back on track.

 

The airline said it hopes to operate all long-haul flights out of Heathrow and Gatwick airports by Wednesday.

 

"This will help to get more aircraft, pilots and cabin crew back who are currently in the United Kingdom out to cities around the world to help customers still awaiting a flight," BA said.

 

Eruptions from the Eyjafjallajokull volcano are weakening, authorities in Iceland reported, but volcanic ash already in the air continued to blow toward Britain.

 

The decision to reopen airspace came after the CAA issued new guidance on the massive ash cloud snarling air traffic.

 

Data analysis and testing of flights through the ash cloud determined that aircraft have a higher tolerance to low-density ash levels than previously thought, allowing for the reopening of airspace, the CAA said.

 

Elsewhere, half of all Europe's flights were back in the air Tuesday.

 

Latest air travel developments

 

About 14,000 flights were expected to operate in European airspace Tuesday -- half of scheduled air traffic, according to Eurocontrol, the intergovernmental body that manages European air travel. Two-thirds of scheduled flights were canceled Monday, and nearly 80 percent did not fly over the weekend.

 

Flights on Monday were restricted to those above 20,000 feet, Eurocontrol said. Lower airspace is closed or severely restricted across Europe, it said.

 

Planes were back in the air in France, Germany and Italy. Around 75 percent of scheduled flights were expected from France's two main airports: Charles de Gaulle and Orly, French Minister for Ecology Jean-Louis Borloo told French radio network RTL.

 

Germany's air authority, DFS, allowed flights to take off and land in German airports at low altitude under visual flight rules to reduce the risk of damage to airline instruments. The country's main carrier, Lufthansa, said it hoped to operate as many as 330 flights, including some long-haul flights, Tuesday.

 

Italy has reopened its airspace nationwide, the Italian aviation authority ENAC announced.

 

While airports were open in Spain, the ban on flying in British airspace left thousands of Britons trapped there. A British Navy vessel, HMS Albion, was dispatched to pick up 300 civilians from Santander, Spain, along with hundreds of British military personnel who were returning from Afghanistan, Britain's Ministry of Defense said.

 

Is your government doing enough to help stranded travelers?

 

Some countries opened their airspace to travel, while keeping airports closed.

 

Norway opened part of its airspace near Bergen briefly Tuesday and predicted Gardermoen, just north of Oslo, would be open all day, the country's air traffic control service AVINOR said.

 

Meanwhile, Finland confirmed that all Finnish airports would remain closed until 9 a.m. (2 a.m. ET) Wednesday.

 

Would you be afraid to fly through the ash cloud?

 

Meteorologist Derrick Ryall of the Met Office in London said there is no "defined safe limit" for volcanic ash.

 

"No one has said what a safe limit for aircraft is, so therefore it's very difficult for these judgments to be made," he said.

 

We really need to work out what the minimum ash concentration is ... for safe flight. We need to establish what that is, because if we don't, we can expect to see repeats of this sort of disruption," said Simon Day, a volcanologist at University College London.

 

Since the volcanic eruption worsened last week, sending an ash cloud into the skies, airlines have been losing at least $200 million a day, according to the International Air Transport Association, the trade group representing airlines.

 

Airports had lost close to 136 million euros ($184 million) as of Sunday, said Olivier Jankovec, director general of Airports Council International, Europe.

 

Tell us your stories -- send videos, photos

 

More than 6.8 million passengers had been affected, Jankovec said in a statement, adding that the effect is worse than after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States.

 

Thousands of people have been living in airports.

 

"I have been living out of my carry-on for five days," said Paulo Wu, stranded in Amsterdam, Netherlands.

 

After two nights sleeping on a cot at the airport, he was able to get into a hotel with an actual bed, he said.

 

"I have no bags. My bags are somewhere, I think, at the airport. I just have my carry-on," he said.

 

 

 

http://www.cnn.com/2010/TRAVEL/04/20/volcano.ash/index.html?hpt=T3

[Seabee]

The last eruption of Eyjafjallajökull in December 1821 continued until January 1823

 

And all flights operated as scheduled then...so why do they have to be cancelled now!!:D:D

[mathgeek1978]

As usual more incorrect imormation being posted on this topic. The volcano could erupt for years and it will have little or no impact on flying. What is causing the issues right now is the glacier melt pouring into the crater not the eruption itself. The part of the glacier that is doing this is now 2/3 melted so we are only a few days away from when this should no longer be an issue.

 

This is actually scientifically correct: Melting ice pouring into the crater helped create plumes of ash.

 

Go to your backyard and light up the BBQ. When the fire is steady and the grill is hot, take out a bottle of water and slowly drip the water onto the grill. Observe what happens.

[jmark82]

A "Tweet" I saw from Iceland " Europe, Send 30 billion Euros and we will turn off the Volcano":rolleyes:

[Cruise Junky]

A "Tweet" I saw from Iceland " Europe, Send 30 billion Euros and we will turn off the Volcano":rolleyes:

 

Love it!!! There's a t-shirt available too "Don't F**k with Iceland, they don't have the Cash but they have the Ash.

[Moeve]

This is probably the best advice on this thread.

 

Although there is that one poster that pulls all of his facts out of his ash.

 

I beg your pardon!!!!

 

Sorry had to reread that twice - you had me taking deep breathes there for a moment.

[Moeve]

Some of you are bashing a particular poster. However he / she is probably not completely incorrect. During the begining of the eruptions it was indeed the water from the melting glacier coming into contact with the hot magma which caused these "expolsive" eruptions. Now that less water seems to running into the volcano and the opening now seems to be larger this has reduced the explosiveness and also reduced the height of the plume going up into - and this is the problem - the jetstream. The cloud went up to about 11.000 meters at the begining and in those higher atmospheres there are different wind streams which brought the cloud far eastwards to europe.

 

NOW the volcano seems to have lost some power and the plume is now only getting to a height of about 3.000 meters so it is no longer getting into some of the jetstream and isn't being spread as far.

 

By the way these comments are from volcanologists in Iceland.

 

As to Eurocontrol over reacting well that is probable BUT as a first reaction also OK. Where is does get nasty is that instead of checking and testing excatly WHAT is REALLY up there they competely relied on the computer model that simply wasn't verified. There also seems to be a huge difference between flying in a cloud of already dispersed and not really visiable ash and actually flying directly into the plume like the BA flight 009 back in the 90's over Java - which is the basis for the current rules.

 

Some of you might want to apologize to the OP slightly...........

[Smartcookie]

Oh how I wish I'd made a wager with 80'sramfan.

 

I guess he was wrong about no more flights being canceled due to continued eruptions. What a surprise. ;)

[RichS10]

I was in Rome for the duration of the last eruption. Fortunately, I had booked a non-stop flight on United from Dulles to Rome and back. Most if not all airports in Northern Europe had closed. At one point, even Milan and Barcelona had closed, however, neither Rome nor Madrid ever closed.

 

If I was trying to make a cruise anywhere in Europe right now, I would try only if I could book my flights in and out of Rome or Madrid. The trains were very packed during the first eruption, but people seemed to eventually get to where they were going. The nice thing about Europe's AV trains is you do get a seat reservation with your booking and I believe you can do the reservation online (or at least check availability).

 

Otherwise, given Celebrity's lack of cooperation, I wouldn't risk further loss of your cruise fare under the circumstances. Just my feeling on this.

 

Rich

[Lou33]

For people thinking of canceling because of the volcano, please consider this. I just got off the phone with a Celebrity represetative and I asked what would happen to people who could not fly to their cruise port because of the volcano *and* they did not have any travel insurance. The representative said that Celebrity will "work with you" in these types of situations. When I asked for more details, he said that Celebrity will give 100% credit towards a future cruise. You would need to show proof that your flight was cancelled.

 

I was considering buying travel insurance, but now I may not. If I could not make my cruise because of the volcano, I could cancel my precruise hotel at no charge, get 100% credit for a future cruise, and a 100% refund for a flight that did not happen.

 

Now people may want insurance for other reasons, but that is a whole different story. The point is that if you feel that you didn't need insurance before, then you may not need it now. The worst thing that I can see happening (related to the volcano) is that after the cruise, we may have a problem flying home and be stuck in Europe for a while, but that isn't the end of the world.

 

And I certainly don't think this is a reason to cancel your cruise.

[Lou33]

I just spoke to another representative and they said the person who I spoke to was mistaken, and that Celebrity would not give any credit if we could not make our cruise for "any" reason (including a volcano) if we did not have insurance.

 

Maybe it is their policy to tell people that they won't receive any compensation, but in practice they do?

 

What happened to the people who missed their cruise last month? Did they receive any credit towards a future cruise?

[gofish]

I called yesterday and they said they would help their customers but would not explain what that meant and never offered a future credit. So then I emailed them yesterday but have no reply. I sent to captains club that says response within 48 hours.

 

 

"We have 7 rooms booked on the ECLIPSE on June 12, 2010.

None of us booked airfare thru Celebrity.

I wish to confirm Celebrity’s position concerning cancellations.

If all United Kingdom airports are closed next month as they were last month then we will lose our full cruise fares.

If we cancel now we will forfeit our $900 deposits and be refunded the full cruise fare less the deposit.

Did Royal Caribbean / Celebrity issue future cruise credits or refunds for those who were affected last month who had booked cruise only?"

[Lou33]

Gofish,

 

Is it too late for you to buy insurance? You can get insurance for far less than $900.

 

But remember, if you cannot make your cruise, you will never lose everything. At a bare minimum, Celebrity will always refund the taxes and fees portion of the cruise. Also, if you had prepaid gratuities, you will always get a refund for that. So if you were to cancel right now, you would be certain to lose $900. But if you miss your cruise, then you could lose only the additional amount of the cruise fare portion. And if your flight did not happen, then you should get a 100% refund for that. So depending on what you paid for your cruise, you may have only an extra $1000 or so at risk.

 

I can't imagine that you would cancel right now and lock in a $900 loss when it is most likely that your cruise would go off without a hitch anyway.

 

It is in Celebrity's best interests to "work with" their customers under special circumstances. I can't imagine that they wouldn't give you some sort of credit for future cruises if you could not make it because of the volcano.

 

But it may also be in their best interests to "keep quiet" about how they might "work with you". This way they could change their policy, because they never published one. But if you get a direct answer from them *please* let us know.

[suzie q]

We are going on July 15th Equinox cruise out of Rome, have paid in full and now it's a case of wait and see. We were victims of cancelled flights last month and are hoping lightning doesn't strike twice - or should that be volcanic ash!?!:confused:

[gofish]

Gofish,

 

Is it too late for you to buy insurance? You can get insurance for far less than $900.

 

But remember, if you cannot make your cruise, you will never lose everything. At a bare minimum, Celebrity will always refund the taxes and fees portion of the cruise. Also, if you had prepaid gratuities, you will always get a refund for that. So if you were to cancel right now, you would be certain to lose $900. But if you miss your cruise, then you could lose only the additional amount of the cruise fare portion. And if your flight did not happen, then you should get a 100% refund for that. So depending on what you paid for your cruise, you may have only an extra $1000 or so at risk.

 

I can't imagine that you would cancel right now and lock in a $900 loss when it is most likely that your cruise would go off without a hitch anyway.

 

It is in Celebrity's best interests to "work with" their customers under special circumstances. I can't imagine that they wouldn't give you some sort of credit for future cruises if you could not make it because of the volcano.

 

But it may also be in their best interests to "keep quiet" about how they might "work with you". This way they could change their policy, because they never published one. But if you get a direct answer from them *please* let us know.

 

It is a 14 day cruise. If it were a $1000 loss not a big deal.

The penthouse is over $20,000 the royal is over 15,000 the three aqua class are $7,000 each and then two balconies are $6,000 each.

 

I doubt insurance would be available and would cover this ash condition and the company would have large enough reserves to handle the claims.

 

 

Still no answer from captain's club.

[Lou33]

Gofish,

 

OK so I see your concern. So they let you book a Penthouse suite with just a $900 deposit? So in your case the deposit might be less than the cost of insurance.

 

I guess this is a difficult situation for both you and Celebrity. It could be a big loss for you, and/or it could be a big loss for Celebrity if they were to lose income from expensive suites.

 

If you are spending that much money, I think they owe you an explanation of exactly how they would handle it. Please let us know what they say.

[gofish]

Dear Mr. :

 

Thank you for your email.

 

Celebrity Cruises is truly sorry to learn that your travel plans may be hindered by the lingering volcanic ash from the Eyjafjallajoekull eruption. Presently, normal cancellation policies will apply to your sailing. We sincerely regret any disappointment this may cause and recommend you to reach out to your travel insurance provider for further assistance. We also encourage you to continue to check the homepage of our website (http://www.royalcaribbean.com) for the most current information regarding this situation.

 

Mr. , thank you for choosing Celebrity Cruises.

 

Sincerely,

 

Constance Wood

Customer Service Representative

 

 

 

[THREAD ID:1-IO1XOG]