Iceland's Volcanic Eruptions
Disrupt Air Traffic in UK and Europe
More cancelations expected as...
many airlines are expected to cancel its flights to and from London, Paris, Germany and Switzerland Sunday and Monday because of the ash activity from Iceland's ongoing volcano eruption, wreaking havoc for anyone expecting to travel to Northern Europe.
And the electronic international departures board at Vancouver airport Saturday flashed ``cancelled'' next to four scheduled flights operated by other airlines out of Vancouver - to London, Frankfurt and Amsterdam and back, stranding Canadians abroad.
``I was supposed to fly to Denmark to visit a friend from London but now have had to arrange for not one but two nights in hotel,'' said Laura Baziuk of Vancouver in an e-mail to The Province.
``Like millions of others, I'm stranded in a foreign land,'' said Dr. Robert Hare, a UBC professor who got stuck in Copenhagen where he was attending a conference last week.
Airlines are advising travellers to not travel to the airport if their flight has been cancelled and Vancouver airport's international departures level Saturday seemed quieter than usual. They were also encouraged to rebook their flights themselves - airlines were waiving penalties - on other flights and to be warned of lengthy waits to talk to someone by phone.
Their websites listed cancellations day by day, with the proviso that they couldn't predict when service would resume.
It was the same story in Calgary, where Jorge Rodriguez spent Saturday looking for things to do.
Standing in line at the airport waiting to talk to agents, he got tips on Drumheller, the Calgary Zoo and the Telus World of Science.
He, his wife and toddler daughter were not planning on staying in Calgary any longer after their 12-day trip to Banff, but after their flight home to Madrid, via Frankfurt, was cancelled Friday, they intend to make the most of the additional time.
``We'll definitely be here for four days,'' he said. ``We'll try to do an extended holiday.''
Rodriguez and his family were among numerous tourists and convention attendees who have found themselves stranded in Calgary as volcanic ash continues to clog the skies over Europe.
As the volcanic ash moved farther south and east, European countries were forced to extend flight bans into next week.
France shut the three airports in the Paris area and others in the north of the country until 8 a.m. Monday due to the ash cloud that has caused the biggest airspace shutdown since the Second World War.
Italy also said it would not allow any flights in the north of the country until Monday, while Belgium, Britain, Ireland, Germany, Austria and Belgium shut their airspace into Sunday.
Additionally, British Airways cancelled all its flights in and out of London.
Poland said it was shutting its airspace ``until further notice,'' preventing world leaders, including Prime Minister Stephen Harper and U.S. President Barack Obama, from attending Sunday's funeral of Polish president Lech Kaczynski and his wife Maria, who were killed in a plane crash April 10.
Winds blowing the massive cloud eastward from Iceland to Russia will continue in the same direction for at least two days and could go on until the middle of next week, the Icelandic Meteorological Office said Saturday.
``The ash will continue to be directed toward Britain and Scandinavia,'' Teitur Arason, a meteorologist at the Icelandic Meteorological Office, told Agence France-Presse.
``That's the general situation for the coming days ... more or less for the next two days or maybe the next four or five days,'' he said.
Airlines were again forced to cancel flights out of Calgary on Saturday, including Lufthansa, which had agents helping several European customers attempting to make their way back home.
``If you said I couldn't fly for one week because of a volcano in Iceland, I'd say you're crazy,'' said Alice Galli after speaking with an agent.
Galli is trying to get back to Switzerland after attending a weeklong symposium in Banff on mountain travel.
But news from her family in Switzerland had Galli also trying to come up with new plans for returning to Europe that don't involve flying.
The evening news in that country reported a second volcano is now showing signs of activity and there are concerns she won't be able to fly home anytime soon.
She, along with Austrian Jakob Falkner and a handful of others - all also at the Mountain Travel Symposium - are now talking about trying to get to New York and then taking a cruise across the Atlantic to get home.
Both have been rebooked on a flight to Frankfurt on Tuesday.
``The bad thing is you don't know what's going on, when the flight will go, '' Falkner said. ``This uncertain situation is a bad thing.''
Vancouver Province with files from Calgary Herald and Agence France-Presse
