My family and I were amongst the many thousands of people recently stranded in Portugal due to the volcanic ash situation. Our 7 day holiday finally came to an end after 17 days.

I just want to thank all the staff at the Solferias Hotel who were so helpful and kind in our hour of need, as were the car hire company and the many restaurant staff and owners who we got to know quite well.

However the same cannot be said for the airline we were booked with who abandoned us at the airport with a memo and a list of emergency contact numbers, none of which we were able to get through to.

I cannot think of a more friendly place I would rather be stranded in and look forward to our next visit in August.

Becky T

Scottish airspace closed from 7.00am tomorrow risk of cloud drifting south with more closures.

BeckyT wrote:.....However the same cannot be said for the airline we were booked with who abandoned us at the airport with a memo and a list of emergency contact numbers, none of which we were able to get through to....

Who was it?

I bet it was Monarch.

Will have to agree with you there DJ as Monarch are dire to say the least.

Name and shame I say, who was it?
Gaynor

baggysallyjane wrote:Will have to agree with you there DJ as Monarch are dire to say the least.

I have to admit, on the many occasions we've flown with Monarch they have been very good.

Monarch were very good with us at Christmas with the snow problems re booked our flights for 5 days later, extra leg room seats etc

Yes it was Monarch. Our previous experiences with them have been excellent, but not this time. I must say Easy Jet staff were brilliant. Not only were the Monarch emergency contacts unobtainable, their website also crashed,boucing back all correspondance.

Thats a shame, we went to the Airport in faro and sorted it out at the desk they have there they were really nice, we use them about 8 times a year, we had problems last summer when they kept changing the carrier on the evening flight, but apart from that no problems, did you complain? We did re the changes, got a nice letter back but that was it.

It was an unusual situation to say the least but when it came down to dealing with it I think there were those airlines that just couldn't handle or didn’t want to handle this sort of predicament. It's difficult to cover every scenario but we were in Europe for heavans sake. I still say that airlines should have immediately deployed busses to those places in Europe to pick up stranded passengers. Ok a bit of a logistic nightmare but one that could have been overcome My sister had 10 extra days to wait with BMI Baby, couple of busses from Swansea and Cardiff would have done it.
Gaynor

We have sent a letter in the hope we will get our food and accommodation paid for. Already had a reply. but due to the volume of enquiries it's been passed on to a third party, so fingers crossed. To add insult to injury on our flight home the plane was less than half full due to the fact many people had made their own way back, passengers asked if they could move to extra leg room seats but were told they would have to pay £17.50 for the seats even though they were empty !!!!! I suppose they need to make their money back some way.