Sunday, May 16, 2010
Ash cloud from Iceland
There is another ash cloud in Iceland disrupting air travel.
Like so many other people we were delayed by the volcanic eruptions during April. In our case we were held up in Turkey.
The airline seemed not to have any idea how to handle the delay and they bundled us, along with bukha'd pilgrims just back from Mecca and multifarious other persons, to a "faux 5-star" hotel. The pilgrims from Mecca turned out to be a likeable and interesting bunch and Fatima, in particular, seemed to show that wearing a burkha need not necessarily diminish the manifestation of character and strong personality. After holding us all in the hotel for a couple of days, during which if we had been told the airline's subsequent behaviour we could quite possibly have obtained transportation elsewhere, the hotel threw us out at 4:30 in the morning on the pretext that we would obtain a flight at 7:30 am. Of course there was no such flight and we were effectively left to find our way. One pilgrim tried vociferously for a long time on our behalf, with the aim to simply provide us all with some sort of accommodation. He very intelligently suggested many possibilities which could have easily remedied the matter at little expense to the airline, pointing out also that such behaviour as to throw his family which had 3 very young children out of a hotel which they hadn't wanted to visit in the first place, was bad behaviour. We finally obtained a flight pass written on the spot by airport staff for travel to London by air two days later, and proceeded to doss down at the airport. I began to feel as if I had somehow found myself as a character in George Orwell's "Down and Out in London and Paris", possibly with all that such a fate implies. And indeed, worse was to come. Naturally we were then told that the airport was due to close for a very long time and that there would only be two more flights, one to Rome where there were no connections by that time, and one back to Mumbai. We therefore went back to Mumbai and so lost the fare cost.
It would have been possible to continue to England in another week if Turkish Airlines had put us up for another week, because the airports in the UK started from April 25th, but absolutely no arrangements were made on our behalf by Turkish Airlines despite continued requests. We eventually had to go by another airline, Jet Airways, at our own expense, as Turkish Airlines refused their agreed comitment.
What happened to the pilgrims ? I do not know, but I hope they had better luck than we did. I must say that I was left with the impression that Mecca is currently suffering a problem faced by many people today - extreme overcrowding. It is a real shame, and a pious pilgrimage should allow easy access to joy not worry. I am not up to date on Muslim pilgimages as I am not a Muslim, but when I visited the Mosque at Srinagar some years ago it looked like a great place for pilgrims to go and is one of only a handful of such mosques. If only Pakistan would cease fighting over the area the Srinagar mosque could make a good profit for the Indian Government (India has the second largest Muslim population in the world) and indeed for Kashmir. Much to say there.
Like so many other people we were delayed by the volcanic eruptions during April. In our case we were held up in Turkey.
The airline seemed not to have any idea how to handle the delay and they bundled us, along with bukha'd pilgrims just back from Mecca and multifarious other persons, to a "faux 5-star" hotel. The pilgrims from Mecca turned out to be a likeable and interesting bunch and Fatima, in particular, seemed to show that wearing a burkha need not necessarily diminish the manifestation of character and strong personality. After holding us all in the hotel for a couple of days, during which if we had been told the airline's subsequent behaviour we could quite possibly have obtained transportation elsewhere, the hotel threw us out at 4:30 in the morning on the pretext that we would obtain a flight at 7:30 am. Of course there was no such flight and we were effectively left to find our way. One pilgrim tried vociferously for a long time on our behalf, with the aim to simply provide us all with some sort of accommodation. He very intelligently suggested many possibilities which could have easily remedied the matter at little expense to the airline, pointing out also that such behaviour as to throw his family which had 3 very young children out of a hotel which they hadn't wanted to visit in the first place, was bad behaviour. We finally obtained a flight pass written on the spot by airport staff for travel to London by air two days later, and proceeded to doss down at the airport. I began to feel as if I had somehow found myself as a character in George Orwell's "Down and Out in London and Paris", possibly with all that such a fate implies. And indeed, worse was to come. Naturally we were then told that the airport was due to close for a very long time and that there would only be two more flights, one to Rome where there were no connections by that time, and one back to Mumbai. We therefore went back to Mumbai and so lost the fare cost.
It would have been possible to continue to England in another week if Turkish Airlines had put us up for another week, because the airports in the UK started from April 25th, but absolutely no arrangements were made on our behalf by Turkish Airlines despite continued requests. We eventually had to go by another airline, Jet Airways, at our own expense, as Turkish Airlines refused their agreed comitment.
What happened to the pilgrims ? I do not know, but I hope they had better luck than we did. I must say that I was left with the impression that Mecca is currently suffering a problem faced by many people today - extreme overcrowding. It is a real shame, and a pious pilgrimage should allow easy access to joy not worry. I am not up to date on Muslim pilgimages as I am not a Muslim, but when I visited the Mosque at Srinagar some years ago it looked like a great place for pilgrims to go and is one of only a handful of such mosques. If only Pakistan would cease fighting over the area the Srinagar mosque could make a good profit for the Indian Government (India has the second largest Muslim population in the world) and indeed for Kashmir. Much to say there.
# posted by uv : 4:24 AM
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