Air travel in Europe has taken a hard knock these past days. Media reports of all Europe being utterly paralyzed have a dash of hyperbole. Less than one percent of intra-European international journeys rely on air travel, and European bus companies, ferry and rail operators have jumped at the chance to remind the traveling public that they have seats to spare.

Rediscovering the train

True, there have been some pinch points where train capacity was stretched—for example, Eurostar services through the Channel Tunnel to London were very full. That said, all those who wanted to book were able to secure places, and even when the prospects for air travel were at their worst (last Saturday and Sunday), we noted that travelers prepared to book three days in advance could still secure rail tickets from Cologne to London for €59.

Reopening the skies

Chances are that today over half of all scheduled flights in Europe will operate. This will be the first time in a week that the flight success rate has topped the 50 percent threshold. On the three most dismal days for travelers—April 17, 18 and 19—less than a third of all scheduled flights operated.

Small is beautiful

Media attention focused on the chaos at major hub airports where travelers waited in vain for flights. Few folk noticed the little airlines that often managed to operate from minor airports while big jets were grounded. For example, Widerøe used its fleet of Dash-8 turboprops to offer flights to two dozen remote airports in Norway.

The Faroese factor

The Faroe Islands were less fortunate. That evil cloud hung directly overhead. The sole weekly ship to continental Europe left last Thursday as normal—before the full extent of flight disruption was really evident. Since then the islands have been effectively cut off from the wider world.

Now Europe’s skies are opening up again, and the Faroes are being reconnected, ironically just as the Smyril Line ship is due back in the islands for that weekly voyage to Denmark.

Rethinking travel options

For remote island communities, flights are a lifeline. But for much of Europe they are a luxury—at least for short hops across the continent of less than 1,000 miles. Many Europeans are now rethinking their travel choices for the future. There may yet be a silver lining in volcanic clouds.

The post The Sky is the Limit: Rethinking travel in Europe, post-volcano appeared first on EuroCheapo's Budget Travel Blog.

Last week, in the wake of the eruption of Iceland’s Eyjafjallajökull volcano, first the countries of northern and western Europe closed their airports. And then country after country to the south and east followed suit. The whole thing proceeded as if by incredibly rapid viral transmission. Very quickly all sorts of relatively arcane volcano terminology began to crop up on television news programs in Europe.

The ash arrives in Romania and Moldova

For days I monitored the expanding shade of ash across the BBC’s map of Europe. Then on Saturday morning, I awoke to learn from an employee at our hotel in Gura Humorului, Romania that Romania and Moldova had closed their airports. Suddenly it seemed likely that I too would be directly affected by the air travel stoppage that had come to paralyze Europe.

The lack of regular updates by trusted sources became a source of frustration. Eurocontrol, the European Organization for the Safety of Air Navigation, has been updating their volcanic ash cloud maps far too infrequently. And then there are many publications listing European countries with full or partial airspace closures that have been omitting Moldova from their tabulations altogether, despite the fact that the Chisinau airport has been closed for days.

Taking flight today?

Today I’m scheduled to fly from Chisinau to Istanbul on Turkish Airlines. As of this moment, very early on Tuesday morning in Chisinau, my flight is scheduled to take off as planned around noon.

My mother—my traveling companion for the past week-and-a-half—is supposed to be Milan-bound on Meridiana at noon tomorrow. Her flight has been canceled outright. We’ve spent many of the last few hours sketching out contingency plans for her. Happily, she’s on vacation and can take the time to make her way south and west.

The post Flight Memo: Volcanic ash across Europe appeared first on EuroCheapo's Budget Travel Blog.