Air passengers all over the world are stranded, desperate to get home or have been stuck at home missing out on important events such as weddings, visiting relatives and much anticipated holidays etc. For us personally, t'husband has missed his best mate's stag do, an event that in the end was cancelled completely because a few people were unable to get flights and were stranded in various parts of the world. I'm sure that my own fair city of Nottingham will be able to cope with the relative small drop in revenue that it will miss over the weekend. Our own drop in revenue due to some unpronounceable lump of rock and the billowing smoke that it's spewing is less predictable.
picture from The Boston Globe
We have 3 customers currently stranded in Spain with us, 2 or which have decided to take themselves off to Salou rather than stay in a rural village in the middle of a load of rice fields, who can blame them, and the third has paid someone to drive over from England to collect him. We have 9 customers who are supposed to arrive this week. 3 were due on Friday from Glasgow, they have been told they can fly tomorrow but that is looking highly unlikely and the others are to arrive on Sunday and Monday, again not looking likely. That's just this week. Let's face it this volcano could carry on erupting for weeks, months even, it's been going since the 21st March. The last time Eyjafjallajokull erupted back in 1821 it lasted 2 years! It looks increasing like there will only be a few brief time periods where there are sufficient gaps in the ash to fly, but if the wind prevails in the wrong direction, ie South then this could carry on for ages. If customers can't get to us, we don't earn any money. Worrying times.
Of course, it's not just us that this will effect, airlines are losing billions of pounds every day that their planes are stood still on airport tarmac, surely this cost will have to be eventually recouped by higher airfares. A number of smaller airlines will no doubt be put out of business completely. Add into the equation that freight is unable to get in and out of Europe quickly enough then manufacturing will be hit, just what the world needs when it's desperately trying to claw it's way out of the worse recession since the 1930's.
Read more on this depressing subject if you can bear it here.
