Volunteers asked to give seats to stranded passengers

Posted on Friday, April 23, 2010

UK airlines are seeking volunteers to give up return seats so passengers still stranded after the volcanic ash cloud disruption can return home.

British Airways has asked customers due on return flights since services resumed to stay abroad to allow people who were left stranded to come home.

Virgin Atlantic says many such volunteers have contacted the airline.

Earlier, British Airways (BA) rejected suggestions it was prioritising new passengers over those stranded abroad.

British airspace reopened on Tuesday following almost a week of grounded flights. Although more planes than usual are flying, tens of thousands of Britons are still stuck overseas.

No extra cost

Airlines are adopting different strategies to get their customers home as soon as possible.

BA is seeking volunteers who can delay their return - and give up their seat for a stranded passenger.

The company says those volunteers can then re-book on later flights at no extra cost.

In some areas of the world, there is a significant lack of air capacity to enable British people to be returned quickly Mark Tanzer Association of British Travel Agents

Stranded customers are being offered returns as much as a week or so in the future, and some passengers have complained that BA appeared to be selling empty seats on earlier flights to new passengers.

BA said its computer system forced empty seats to be made available for sale, but that the tickets had been significantly overpriced so they would remain unsold and stranded passengers could then be accommodated.

Virgin Atlantic is taking up offers from volunteers who can fly home at a later date.

Backlog

EasyJet says it is setting up stand-by desks in airports to process waiting passengers. Ryanair says it has already cleared its backlog.

The Association of British Travel Agents (Abta) said it aimed to have repatriated more than 100,000 British passengers by the end of the weekend.

But chief executive Mark Tanzer said: "While most flights are back to normal, and most stranded British passengers will be back by the end of this weekend, there is still quite a high level of disruption in some destinations.

"In some areas of the world, there is a significant lack of air capacity to enable British people to be returned quickly."

Extra BA planes were despatched on Thursday and Friday to Hong Kong, Bangkok, Dubai, the Caribbean, and Sharm el-Sheikh.

Over the weekend the airline hopes to send out more extra planes to repatriate customers from New York, Newark, the Maldives, Mumbai, Bangkok and Hong Kong.

Most of these will fly out with freight, or completely empty, and will be for the use of stranded customers only.

However, the number of extra flights is limited by the availability of empty planes, pilots and cabin crews.

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