A little bit less alone
Last night, after a week of stillness and silence, British airspace reopened. Today the sun came up, I woke up to the drone of a faraway plane, and I felt just a little bit less alone.
After a six-day flight ban affecting just about all of Western Europe, the beginning of a return to normality, even for someone who hasn’t been stranded somewhere or had her travel plans thwarted, is a welcome thing.
Over the course of less than a week, the eruption of Iceland’s Eyjafjallajokull volcano — an Act of God, technically speaking — has grounded close to 100,000 flights and cost the airline industry $1.7 billion, or £1.1 billion. Hundreds of thousands of passengers have been stranded, the lucky ones put up in hotels on their insurers’ or their airlines’ expense, the unlucky ones left at the airport to hope for the best. The skies above London, usually buzzing with air traffic from 6am until 11pm, have been utterly still.
No one has been getting in, and no one has been getting out.
The Eurostar and the ferries that connect the UK to the mainland have, of course, been chockerblock-full. Despite extra services being laid on by everyone from small cruise operators to the Royal Navy, the flow of human traffic has come to a near-complete halt. For love or money, you you can’t get on — or off — the island right now.
The volcano was a surprise for most people, myself included. But for me, more surprising than the smoke, the ash, the lava and the flight ban was what followed: my own bizarre reaction to this volcano-induced exile.
