Icelandic Volcanic Eruption - Significant Disruption to UK Flights

Not all bad news ;), my company is giving us 2 weeks wages worth of free shares as a thankyou for the efforts over the last week or so.

Ok they were probably going to give us them anyway and have used it as a convient reason but still nice none the less. :D

I will probably sell the lot straight away and just buy upgrade my PC for effectively free :)

We are still boroscoping multiple aircraft daily with no sign yet of short time damage. Maybe in a month of so of accumulation something might show and then it will get very expensive with 400+ engines to boroscope.:eek:
 
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I've made it back, just. Delayed at Denver by half hour due to a plane hogging our departure gate due to no flight crew. Meant we got into Chicago with only 20mins to spare, where we then got delayed for an hour as the planes radios went down and needed replaced (squeaky bum time as I was thinking we would be cancelled and put back to the queue getting back - sometime in May!). Arrived at Heathrow in reasonable time, but due to the previous delay we now didn't have a gate to park up at meaning we missed our flight to Aberdeen, put on standby on the next flight but thankfully plenty of seats so got up the road no problem.

What shocked me was the amount of empty seats on the Chicago - London leg, I reckon there was at least a couple of dozen empty seats, all the while the airline is saying 6th of May was the earliest.
 
Not all bad news ;), my company is giving us 2 weeks wages worth of free shares as a thankyou for the efforts over the last week or so.

Ok they were probably going to give us them anyway and have used it as a convient reason but still nice none the less. :D

I will probably sell the lot straight away and just buy upgrade my PC for effectively free :)

We are still boroscoping multiple aircraft daily with no sign yet of short time damage. Maybe in a month of so of accumulation something might show and then it will get very expensive with 400+ engines to boroscope.:eek:

Mmmmm-i will have to decie what new gadget to buy with the proceeds from mine!:D
 
Not all bad news ;), my company is giving us 2 weeks wages worth of free shares as a thankyou for the efforts over the last week or so.

Ok they were probably going to give us them anyway and have used it as a convient reason but still nice none the less. :D

I will probably sell the lot straight away and just buy upgrade my PC for effectively free :)

We are still boroscoping multiple aircraft daily with no sign yet of short time damage. Maybe in a month of so of accumulation something might show and then it will get very expensive with 400+ engines to boroscope.:eek:

Have you had to boroscope every aircraft that comes in? We have just had to do visual inspections due to the fact we are not in a red area zone anymore and crew were not reporting going through any ash clouds.
 
Well made it back late afternoon yesterday from Tokyo ....

Our Tour Manager, (after discussions with JAL), had us out to Narita airport before the check-ins opened at 07:00, (ugh ... it was a 03:30 wakeup call ... that would have been ~19:30 Thursday night UK time).

We had to queue up so they could put everyone in the group on Standby for their lunchtime flight ... but fortunately my Dad and myself were flying business class so were called forward immediately, checked-in and given boarding cards. So then it was just hanging around the airport for 4.5hrs until the flight boarded. Of course then there was a long flight and the traffic in the UK meant we were not home until gone 20:30 last night.

Not all of our group were so lucky though; our of the 32 + Tour Manager in the party 7 + Tour Manager couldn't get on the flight, (and hopefully should be in the air now on today's flight) ... and all the non-business people didn't know if they were flying or not until 15mins before boarding started.

Thomas Cook were very good through the whole thing though. They paid for very good hotel accommodation, on a B&B basis, in central Tokyo and for all extra transfers etc so it was just like an extension to the holiday. We were kept informed on what was going on very well, (helped by having a very good, senior, Tour Manager).

Bit sad for one guy though, he'd paid for an extension in Tokyo at the end of the original holiday, so he paid for staying (in a lower class hotel) and all his transfers whilst we got it all free :)
 
Mmmmm-i will have to decie what new gadget to buy with the proceeds from mine!:D

I'm cashing mine the day I get them before another fuel price/volcano/2012 situation occurs and makes them worthless.

Have you had to boroscope every aircraft that comes in? We have just had to do visual inspections due to the fact we are not in a red area zone anymore and crew were not reporting going through any ash clouds.

Visuals and two off the line for the last few nights for a full boroscope. We have to wipe the 'dust' off our fan blades for each morning to stop the pilots crying. They should be more concerned about whats happening in the hot stream than the cold stream :D
 
Well I'm finally back to NI after a full extra week and Cyprus. First week was nice but having to stay an extra week in a resort that was dead wasn't fun. Missing work and missing my fiancee wasn't good but I managed to put in the week ok.

Thankfully our tour operator gave us free accomodation but we had to pay meals ourselves. I have travel insurance with direct-travel so I think they will be able to cover that. They certain hinted at that on the phone anyhow.

I think other people have been in much worse circumstances so I won't complain.

There was a bit of a boo-boo yesterday at the airport as they had overbooked the return flight by 14 but thankfully we were one of the first checked in. I'd have screamed to have had to stay a third week. Some people with no ties back home volunteered to stay for a 3rd week - pay 1 get 3 isn't too bad if you have nothing better to do!

Great cheer when the plane hit the runway last night. Great to be home.

/my little story
 
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