It’s been a trying weekend in the UAE as thousands of passengers found themselves stranded as a cloud of volcanic ash from Iceland blocks routes to Europe.
Luckily, it looks like many airlines are doing their best to keep customers happy.
Etihad Airways said on Sunday that 16,000 of its passengers had been affected worldwide by the volcano disruption.
It added that 2,500 passengers had been put up in hotels in Abu Dhabi and this arrangement would continue until the airline was able to transfer them to their final destination.
Each stranded passenger was receiving breakfast, lunch and dinner at hotel, the UAE’s national carrier said in a statement, adding that they were staying at 12 hotels across Abu Dhabi.
Emirates Airline said on Sunday that the disruption caused by the Icelandic volcano eruption was “unprecedented in aviation history”.
The Dubai carrier said it was currently providing hotel accommodation and three meals per day for more than 5,000 transit passengers at a cost of more than $1 million per day.
To date, 229 Emirates flights have been cancelled and over 73,000 passengers have been impacted by the ongoing disruption.
Richard Vaughan, divisional senior vice president, Commercial Operations Worldwide said: “Disruption of this magnitude is unprecedented in aviation history. The longer that it continues, the more complex the recovery process becomes.
“Emirates understands how difficult the ongoing disruption is for everyone affected. We continue to work on a contingency plan to get our flights and passengers moving as quickly as possible once airspace reopens.
“We estimate that, once approval has been granted to fly, it will take around 24 hours to get our flight schedules back to normal. However, with each day that passes, so the backlog grows.
“Currently, over 73,000 of our passengers have been affected by the cancellations. We plan to operate extra flights to help ease the situation but we will not be able to confirm any further details until clearance is received from European Air Traffic Control authorities.”
The airline has cancelled all its flights to the UK and most to mainland Europe on Sunday and has already grounded all early morning flights to the UK, scheduled to leave Dubai on Monday.
