To what extent are the airlines or travel companues responsible or "to blame" for this, though? They have been prevented from flying by government authority. They are also losing millions of pounds ach day this continues.
A coalition of government and various quangos like the Met Office and NATS acting in unity to suspend flights on safety grounds, and airlines and travel companies not fulfilling their contractual and legal obligations to find alternative accommodation until the crisis passed, are two separate issues.
Listen to the harrowing stories on the news of how families saw £500 holidays turned into £5000 nightmares because the airlines and travel companies abandoned them. People and their families being told they would have to vacate their hotel rooms and sleep on the beach until flights were restored. Folk making trips at their own expense half way across the world by any other means they can find, because their airliner/travel companies reneged on their responsibilities to arrange alternative transportation and/or food and accommodation.
Remember, that is their LEGAL responsibility under the contracts they signed with their customers. If a flight is cancelled, for whatever reason, they are required to make alternative arrangements to fulfil the terms of the contract. They are businesses providing services and goods for cash money. If they can't provide what they have offered, whether it be due to a small local difficulty or a regional, continental or global natural causes/meteorological phenomenon, then it is their responsibility to 1) provide alternatives at no extra cost and 2) compensate their customers for the inconvenience.
If the airliners and travel companies do not have adequate contingency plans in place to convey passengers from a to b, when the normal mode of transportation falls through, then that is something they will need to urgently address.
It was the airline and travel companies’ responsibility to ensure all of these things. The holidays, travel contracts were purchased from them, not the government and it was their responsibility to deliver and fulfil their contracts. The government, NATS, the Met Office aren't in the holiday and travel business. It doesn't own British Airways or any of the airline or travel businesses affected.
Personally, I am of the opinion - one shared by countless others - that there was a lack of scientific preparedness, contingency planning and an element of over-reaction as a result of it on the part of the government. A blanket ban for the first 24 hours or so, I would say was essential. But scientific analysis and investigation should have been much quicker in determining where the ash cloud was less concentrated, at what altitudes it was prevalent at etc in order to ensure a quick, phased re-opening of the skies.
The airline industry themselves should have carried out tests well, well in advance to determine whether there was a 'safe level' of atmospheric volcanic ash levels in which it was safe to fly, not waited until one blew to find out. After all, Iceland is one of the most volcanically active islands on the planet. It's in all the British and European airlines backyards. It's been known about for centuries, it's no big secret!
Clearly, it’s been a first in the modern era of mass airline travel in Britain that's taken people by surprise; what do you do when a volcano erupts near your country?
But they remain separate issues. Any lack of preparedness, the whole steep learning curve, government and other agencies found themselves in, does not absolve airliners and travel companies from responsibility for leaving passengers in the lurch, leaving passengers out in the cold, hungry and homeless in a foreign land, when their flights were grounded.
To describe it has sharp practice, doesn't do such business/consumer treachery justice. Not only is such treatment of customers highly deplorable, the lowest of the low, in the highly competitive modern business world of today, it is sheer business suicide.
Time will tell whether sizable numbers of passengers stop travelling abroad and holiday at home. That process - the staycation - was already starting due to the recession. Personally - like most people - I do not trade with any business that fails to deliver (that's called throwing good money after bad), I boycott them completely and take my business elsewhere.
Customer feedback, focus groups, inane and pointless complaints processes that go unacted upon are all just a bunch of phooey. The only message businesses understands - and listen to - is when customers and money start disappearing out the door.
Only when they clean up their act do I consider using them again.
