My least favorite airline, Ryanair, the one that charges passengers a fee for taking a leak, has been fined for failing to help passengers stranded when their flights were cancelled because of volcanic ash, failing to provide them with drinks, meals and hotel rooms as required by European regulations.
Ryanair better get used to it because we have alarming news coming out of Iceland with The Times reporting that scientists are now warning we face decades of ash clouds.
The scientists reconstructed a timeline of 205 eruptions in Iceland, spanning the past 1,100 years. They found that these eruptions occurred in regular cycles and that the quiet period, which we had over the past 50 years, is now coming to an end. There are four other volcanoes building towards an eruption and three of them are bigger than the last one at Eyjafjallajokull.
If the scientists are right, we can expect this to have a massive impact on business. Airlines have been losing money, and now we have reports that it's had an impact on holiday companies, retailers and taxis.
Worse still, passengers will no longer be able to claim it on their insurance with reports that insurance companies now regard the volcanic ash as a pre-existing condition.
no comment untill now