Just got home after a 1300 km drive from Madrid to Caen (dep 10.00, arr 23.30), overnight last night in Caen, then ferry to Portsmouth. Ferry (dis)embarkation total mayhem - they're clearly not accustomed to coping with the number of foot paasengers carried, although credit to Portsmouth taxi drivers for laying on a huge fleet of them at the quayside (unlike Caen, where taxis for the out-of-town port were in very short supply). Some horror stories from others we met en route made our difficulties seem fairly minor - but still glad to be home.
Problem now is I'm due to travel to Warsaw in 10 days time - might be worth reviewing whether the event should be postponed ....
Mike L On 16/04/2010 23:19, Fossil wrote:
I don’t envy you. I guess it will be at least a two day drive at best.. bones bones@xxxxxxx <mailto:bones@xxxxxxx> *From:* jhb-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:jhb-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] *On Behalf Of *Mike Lucas *Sent:* 16 April 2010 18:17 *To:* jhb@xxxxxxxxxxxxx *Subject:* [jhb] Re: Flights Hello from Madrid - impossible to get out of here back to the UK (I'm booked on EasyJet to EGGW). We've had a conference of around 60 people from all over Europe and there are some pretty grim faces of those who want to head back north. Not helped by the fact that French railways are on strike, and (at least for those of us wanting to get back to the UK) ferries from Bilbao/Santander are now fully booked and their web and telephone services can no longer handle the volume of traffic. My daughter went through Madrid airport this morning for a flight back to Barcelona and she reported that it was absolute bedlam. Five of us have finally settled on hiring a car to drive to Paris and get on the Eurostar - still a few seats available, and fortunately not affected by the French railway strike. Rental cars are now hard to get hold of. Scale this up for other countries/cities/airports and it's a pretty bleak picture. Hoping to be home on Sun evening, fingers crossed. Watch this space .... Mike L On 16 April 2010 14:41, Fossil <fossil@xxxxxxx <mailto:fossil@xxxxxxx>> wrote: The Glasgow aircraft diverted to Manchester. So far I've seen the TOM and TCX go into Manchester and a couple depart - again for the sunny islands. Aer Lingus are firing aircraft out of Dublin and Aer Arann seem to be operating too - seen three so far. Normally I would have recorded about 600 aircraft by this time of day and you would think the records would be near zero - but I've logged 91 aircraft so far. Most are GA but there have been a few bizjets and the Irish Air Corp PC9's are quite active. As I write an Antonov An124 has also appeared.. bones bones@xxxxxxx <mailto:bones@xxxxxxx> -----Original Message----- From: jhb-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <mailto:jhb-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> [mailto:jhb-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <mailto:jhb-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>] On Behalf Of Gerry Winskill Sent: 16 April 2010 14:02 To: jhb@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <mailto:jhb@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> Subject: [jhb] Re: Flights Just had a call from my son, in NY. He should have left last night but it was cancelled. He's got himself onto a non scheduled BA flight, that might leave this evening, heading for Prestwick. He thinks they are trying to get the aircraft, plus BA personnel, back to the UK. A check on Prestwick shows they have no flights at the moment, though Glasgow have had the arrival from the Carbean, plus a couple of other long hauls. That being the case it's hard to see that they can't operate the Glasgow IOM route. Manx2 say they can operate to Leeds by staying below 8000 ft and that should be OK for Glasgow to IOM, I would have thought. Gerry Winskill Fossil wrote: > Despite the ban on aircraft in the UK some operators have obviously > decided that NATS was over cautious in their decision. > > I've seen several flights in and out of Dublin today, Manx2 are running > their little LET on Blackpool and Belfast flights and TCX7l and TOM663 > have just flown into Manchester. > > Oddly enough TOM663 was from Barbados but it appeared over Tiree and > routing to Islay. That's pretty well parallel to the ash cloud which is > flowing from Iceland to Sumburgh and maybe just 150nm south. If they are > letting aircraft get that close to the plume (which I guess they can > clearly see) then why is all traffic in the south of the UK blocked? > It's weird. > > TCX7L also appeared on screen about Londonderry so that was another > Caribbean flight that went well north. It puzzles me. > > bones > > _____bones@xxxxxxxx <mailto:bones@xxxxxxx <mailto:bones@xxxxxxx>> >