Flights (or, possibly, trains)

[fivemack]

I've an Easyjet flight booked Saturday afternoon from Krakow to Luton.

Easyjet flights out of England are quite comprehensively cancelled, which I imagine means by the Law of Conservation of Aircraft that everything except the absolutely-next flight from any destination into England is going to be problematic; I'm having visions of the entire Easyjet fleet lined up wing-tip to wing-tip at Luton, rather as I saw the entire Air Paradise fleet lined up in a line at Kuta after they went suddenly bust.

Which I think means either I wait in Poland until the problems are resolved -- and I'm reluctant to bet on how long it will take for the professional paranoids of Thames House to loosen up on their paranoia -- or attempt to head home over land.

A train from here takes 25 hours via Poznan, Cologne, Brussels and the Chunnel, which, whilst I've only a book and a half left, sounds a lot more fun than long waits at Krakow airport; on the other hand Eurostar tickets for immediate travel appear to cost 150 pounds, and the long overland stretch is probably about the same. A bus takes no longer and is 90 pounds, and maybe no more uncomfortable.

Or am I being silly, panicing in advance of the facts; should I simply wait and check on Saturday afternoon if my flight actually exists, and rely on my boss not to mind too much if geopolitics keep me from work until Tuesday.

Comments

[emperor]

seat61 reckon that Krakow -> London is best via Berlin and Brussels.

[purpletigron.livejournal.com]

I would wait, and see whether things are starting to move again tomorrow.

[crazyscot.livejournal.com]

Wait and see. It's too close to call whether your flight will happen.

EZY say their flights are cancelled today because of the severe congestion at all UK airports because of the security lockdown. I hope the current situation doesn't persist more than a few days, and in any event EZY will at this moment be scrabbling to figure out how to get their flight schedule back on the, er, road despite the congestion. I'd say it's at least even money that their aircraft are currently all over the place - home and abroad.

Heathrow has semi-closed because there are too many aircraft on the ground there and not enough gates - leading to the cancellation of lots of shorthaul flights across the board. This is, to my mind, somewhat less likely to happen at Luton.

[beckyc.livejournal.com]

I've taken a bus to Poland, back in 99. It's really quite painful.

[cultureofdoubt.livejournal.com]

If you've got insurance that will cover a cancelled flight and let you get home over land then I'd go for that.

However, I imagine this will ease up pretty fast. A lot of businesses will be totally paralysed by this and there's going to be a heck of a lot of pressure to get things moving again. Saturday's some way off yet, I reckon you might be ok.

[aldabra]

Wait and see on Saturday, but have a contingency plan in case they tell you to piss off. It seems to be explicitly flights between us and the US which are the problem, so I'd expect intracontinental ones to get moving again quite quickly. Check the plane isn't scheduled to go on to the US, otherwise they'll confiscate your book and a half.

[(Anonymous)]

Womacks various, in varying degrees of paranoia - ranging from "it´s all made up by the government!" to something sensible - think you should try to take the scheduled flight. By Saturday, all should have worked its way out, we opine, from the blissful beach in Cadiz. But hope whatever you do doesn´t prove too tedious.

[fivemack.livejournal.com]

My thanks to the scattered (not, y'know, *very* scattered; presumably they're all in Cadiz) Womacks of the world; it appears that EasyJet is now running services as usual, and if I read their press releases correctly the tiresome luggage restrictions don't seem to apply unless you're flying out of the UK. So I ought to be back in England this evening.

First, to acclimatise myself, I will visit the Krakow salt-mine.