So there’s this volcano playing havoc with air travel in northern Europe. Although I imagine everyone has heard about it by now. And there I was with my trip to Australia planned, leaving Saturday morning for London on an EasyJet flight and after a few hours in the city I’d head out to Heathrow and catch a plane to Melbourne, obviously this plan didn’t exactly work out.
I was a bit irritated that I had two separate flights to and from London and that it was going to be tricky getting new flights to match up going through London. Then the volcano continued and I found out the next Qantas flight I could get would be the 23rd. I was heading back to Australia for a wedding on the 24th, so this 23rd thing was a problem.
It was at this point that I saw the other side of the situation. I was actually very lucky, I wasn’t in northern Europe, just had flights through there to Melbourne. So I got a refund on those flights and found a flight going through Madrid on Qatar, perfect. In the end I made it back to Melbourne a little more than 12 hours later than I otherwise would.
Back in Melbourne I’ve been reading these stories of Australians trying to get to Europe and not being able to. truth is, there are ways in and out, you just need to be slightly more creative. It probably doesn’t help that Qantas isn’t about to suggest that their customers try a different airline, and that there are a number that go into airports further south that are unaffected by the volcano, which in my mind is exactly what they should be doing.