There is no doubt that the last week has been chaos. Who would have thought that Iceland, all the way up there to the north west of us, could cause most of Europe to come to a standstill for nearly a week.
And the chaos hasn’t stopped yet!
For the last six days travellers the world over have been left stranded as the majority of passenger planes have been grounded by civil aviation authorities and governments for safety reasons. It became apparent last weekend that the volcanic ash bellowing from Eyjafjallajökull was a potential danger to aircraft flying into the ash clouds hanging over Europe.
And so ensued a blanket ban on passenger aircraft flights, meaning some seven million people across the world were stuck wherever they were. Volcanoes aren’t really bothered if you’re on your way to a wedding in Spain, or if you’ve to be home for work on Monday. They don’t care if you’ve family to get back to, or have no money to keep you in your foreign location. They also don’t care much for aircraft engines.
There is no doubt a hell of a lot of drama was made out of the situation. Some say that governments were too quick to close air space, others suddenly felt a serious need to get back home, by whatever means possible. The desperation was dramatic to say the least. Buses, boats, taxis, trains, you name it, they were all organised to bring the Irish back from the continent. If you were stuck further afield, well, it was a waiting game.
But was there really a need for so much drama? I understand there were some seriously heartbreaking individual stories of weddings abroad having to be cancelled, parents missing their children, and massive quantities of fresh fruit and vegtables going off! But wasn’t it better than being 20-odd thousand feet in the air and the plane’s engine cutting out?
And to see reporters being sent to ports, train stations, and airports as the stranded travellers returned, one had to take a bit of a reality check. These weren’t soliders returning from war. The people returning aren’t victims of an earthquake which has killed millions. This was a simple safety procedure, that, yeah, was a bit of a bother for seven million of us. But better that than planes falling out of the sky.
So as you meet up with friends and family over the next few days, and start your little moan about being stuck in Tenerife for an extra couple of days, just remember how lucky you were. Lucky that safety came first, lucky that the technology was there to give us warning, lucky that no lives were lost.
And never again wish you had a few more days’ holidays!
