When the bus driver got on the bus after packing our luggage underneath he asked us about the volcano, and said he'd heard over their intercom that the airports were closed. A businessman seated behind us confirmed that he'd seen news of an Icelandic volcano that had erupted sending ash into the air, and as a result Scottish airports were closed. Neither Derek nor I had checked the news that morning in the rush to get out the door. As the bus pulled away and began making its way west Derek took out his laptop and we looked around for a sign of WiFi on the bus. Ours didn't have any, but the bus in front of us did (a suspiciously-empty-looking airport bus), so he managed to pick up the signal, went to Glasgow Airport's website, and saw their alert informing us that the airport was closed, and telling passengers to NOT come to the airport. We were supposed to phone the airline, which I did immediately, but as it wasn't even 8am, there was no answer. Derek decided that we should get off the bus now before we were out of town, asked the bus driver to let us out with a quick explanation, and the next thing we knew we were rolling our luggage down the sidewalk for 45 minutes, taking regular breaks to call the airline (with no luck).
Once home I started calling them every 15 minutes. We had BBC news on with its dire forecasts for the ash cloud, and saw the BAA and Nats declare that all UK airspace would close at noon. When I did get hold of our airline (Air Transat), they knew nothing other than that the flight wasn't cancelled, and told me to call back in two hours (around 11am). Seeing as it takes us over 2 hours to get to Glasgow International, and we'd have to buy bus tickets, get two buses, and be at check-in at least 3 hours in advance of take-off it didn't look good. I emailed home, letting our parents know that our best guess was that the flight would be cancelled. We were pretty crushed, having looked forward to going home for weeks (months even, as it'd been 10 months since we were last in Canada). Plus we had planned it all out. We'd left next to no food in the house so that the fridge and freezer could defrost, so we had to start grocery shopping, but only for one day's worth of food as at any time we could get the call and head out.
At 11am I called the airline back, and was a bit dismayed when the rep's response to my question about our flight status was 'Let me check the airport's website.' If only I'd thought of that! :P She told me to call back at 1pm, which was when their head office in Montreal would be making a decision (I suppose they wouldn't have even been at work yet, although with the massive Act of God shutting down huge amounts of airspace I think some of the heads should really have been woken up to deal with it). I said that the flight was supposed to leave at 12:25, so did this mean that it was delayed, and she said that the airspace was closed for the moment, but that's all they knew.
At 1:15pm I called again, and was told to try calling back in 2 hours, as they didn't know anything. I said I'd been told to call at 1, as they were supposed to be getting information from Montreal then, and was snippily told that if they were receive information at 1 then they certainly wouldn't have it yet. But she also mentioned that their flight into Glasgow had landed that morning, so now I knew that our plane was there, which was a very positive thing. It also made me wonder how on earth they'd managed to get it there, as our flight path usually takes us near Iceland. I called at 3 with very little optimism, but this time the guy who answered asked for my flight number, ticket registration number and checked our mobile phone number, and told me that we should have the phone on us at all times. At least he seemed to have some plan.
All through this time I'm constantly emailing our parents with the latest information from the websites, the news, and the lack of information from our airline. I was half cursing myself for choosing a charter airline rather than a regular one who would have a plan in place for situations like this. But as we watched all the major airlines cancel flight after flight, at least we didn't have to worry about rebooking -- we just constantly had to be on standby. It was a bit unsettling not knowing how or when we'd have to get to Glasgow, or when we'd get home, especially when the news reported would talk about how the last time this volcano really erupted it went on for over a year!
Around 7pm our phone rang. Derek was soon grasping for a pen, and wrote down a flight time of 7am, with check-in between 3 and 4 (yikes!). He checked out the bus times and found that the last bus out of Edinburgh left at 11:59pm (the bus station closed at midnight), and the next one wouldn't get us to Glasgow until around 6am. So he called the bus company, explained about the problems that morning and got them to exchange our tickets, then we tried to nap for a couple hours, but I only managed 45 minutes of sleep. At 10:20pm our mobile rang. It was the airline confirming that our flight would be going ahead, so we shouldn't listen to the news reports. We looked online at Nats' website and saw that yes, some Scottish airports were being granted permission for some inter-island and west-bound transatlantic flights between the hours of 1am and 1pm on Friday, because the ash cloud was curving around the country from heading eastward along the Highlands and islands, down the East coast and then westward into England. Within that was a little opening just for Glasgow.
We headed out with our luggage at 11pm and caught a taxi this time, grabbed the midnight bus and got to chatting with the other passenger, a girl who was also gong to be on our flight. When we arrive in Glasgow around 1:30am we found an woman in her late 60s who had been chatting with the Security Guard, as she was the only passenger waiting for a bus and the bus station had closed much earlier. It was a cold night, but luckily the airport bus came right away, and it turned out that she was on our flight as well. When we got to the airport we were relieved that the sliding doors had opened for us, as it was completely deserted. We saw two men sleeping on bench seats, and that was it. We'd packed some snacks and sandwiches to keep us going, even though we were exhausted (having been up for 23 hours) and really should have been sleeping.
Around 3:15am they opened check-in, and around 4 or so security. The only officials around were Air Transat employees and security officials, and the only passengers were on our flight. It was bizarre. I managed to get about 1.5 hours of sleep on a bench at the gate, which I have never in my life managed to do. Derek got a great deals on chicken sandwiches at the Boots drugstore. The shelves were full of yesterday's sandwiches that hadn't been sold because there'd been no passengers to sell them to, so they were reduced to 75p.
7am came and went with no one called to board to plane. That was worrying. A lot of passengers had crowded around the one tv showing BBC news, who were reporting that no flights would be heading out that day. Around 7:15 they announced pre-boarding, and I think we all gave a sigh of relief. Once everyone was on board the Captain came on over the PA system. He thanked us for our patience and understanding and explained that the ash cloud was currently in Belgium, France, and low over Ireland (around 20 000 feet). We would be flying at 37 000 flight, would easily be able to see a new ash cloud if one developed while we were in the air, and the plane had a lot of extra fuel so that we could adjust our route or height to avoid it.
The flight itself was pretty standard. The food was really bad, as expected, and was a bit bizarre. The hot breakfast contained made sense, but the cold items around it were for the lunch that we would have had the day before, including a dinner roll, chocolate muffin, and two bite caramel brownies. That's a fairly sugary breakfast, even for me. They handed out headphones for free (normally they charge $2), showed a couple movies, and everybody slept, including us for about an hour. Because we were taking a more southernly route than normal to avoid going near Iceland, we flew just south of Newfoundland, and were able to see the Gulf of St. Lawrence and watch as the river formed and flowed, surrounded by Quebec. That was pretty cool.
When we touched down in Toronto after a good descent and the flight attendant said 'Welcome to Toronto' over the loudspeaker everyone erupted into applause. Customs was quick, as it was only our flight and a flight from Florida who were coming in, and while waiting ages for our luggage we heard rumours of camera crews outside in the Arrivals area. The rumours were true, as we walked out from behind the little wall to be greeted with a television camera. CBC and either Global or CTV were there (I can't remember which -- I was just so relieved to see my dad). I guess our flight was pretty big news, as we discovered that we were the only ones to make it out of Europe that day (one one of the few who have made it since the 15th, which is pretty amazing). I never worried about the flying conditions, as I knew that with the high level of monitoring, forecasting and security concerns they would not let anyone fly without being sure we'd be clear of ash, and as a result, we had an event-free flight.
By the time I went to bed (at 8:30pm, which had been my goal), I had been up for 44 hours with the exception of 3 naps of roughly 45 minutes each, taken one airplane, two taxis, and three buses, and walked a rediculous amount lugging my backpack and luggage around Edinburgh. It really was quite the adventure. We currently have friends and family members stuck in Ghana, Indonesia, North Carolina and Thailand, and I hope that their travels will work out sooner rather than later. We really were (and are) two of the lucky ones.
