Travellers worldwide struggle to escape ash cloud chaos

With no clear end in sight to the cloud of ash bringing travel chaos to millions, European travellers turned to ground- and sea-based alternatives, with coach and ferry services reaping the dividends.

Pan-European coach company Eurolines said that some of its routes had seen growth of 600 percent after it put on hundreds of extra services and that "the demand for Eurolines services is still increasing."

Around 1,300 parents with children, as well as the elderly and the sick, trapped at Amsterdam-Schiphol airport were put up in hotels, although offers to lodge with 1,000 host families were not widely taken up.

"People prefer to stay at the airport, they hope there\'ll be a flight," said Marten Schvandt, spokesman for the airport\'s commune of Harleemmermeer.

As a result, 1,300 people slept at the airport, said spokeswoman Kathelijna Vermeulen, where they were provided with a bed as well as entertainment in the form of bussed-in musicians and circus acts.

Passengers have been stranded worldwide due to the plume of glass, sand and rock spewing from Iceland\'s Eyjafjoell volcano.

European and international agencies have been in urgent talks to try to ease the chaos after around 30 countries closed or restricted their airspace due to passenger safety fears, catching millions in a global backlog.

Other travellers found extraordinary solutions to the exceptional disruption, including 10 Italians who decided on Sunday to take a taxi home at the end of their skiing holiday beyond the Arctic Circle at Lyngen in Norway.

The taxi company laid on a minibus and three drivers to take turns at the wheel, with the meter expected to read between 7,000 and 14,000 euros (9,400 and 18,800 dollars) on completion of the 4,000-kilometre (2,500-mile) journey.

Others paid 2,000 euros a taxi to travel from Rome to Paris, or a mere 1,400 euros from the Italian capital to Geneva.

Polish border police said that "foreigners trapped by the cloud of volcanic ash and whose visas have expired will be exempted from the normal fine. Border guards will also refrain from ordering people to leave Polish territory."

Between 2,000 and 3,000 travellers camping at Montreal airport in Canada declined offers to stay with host families and were irritated by a rumour that an Air France flight had left for southern France on Saturday with 100 seats unfilled.

While disruption was most intense in Europe, travellers around the world have been affected as the global chaos drags on with many of the stranded running out of cash after having to extend their stays.

At Beijing airport, anguished travellers were told their return home might be delayed for weeks.

"We\'re being really badly informed and Air France is not looking after us at all," complained Barbara Devuyst, 23, part of a group of students on a study trip who had been due to fly out on Monday but were told they might not be able to go home until May 6.

At New Delhi international airport Barbara Cekam, 50, was meant to leave for her hometown of Munich in Germany on Saturday with Lufthansa, but has been sleeping in the lounge.

Choking back tears ahead of her fourth night on a chair, she told AFP she would mark her 51st birthday in the overcrowded room on Tuesday.

"I can\'t stay in a hotel because I don\'t have any money," she said. "The trip was expensive and the hotels around the airport want to charge us more because they\'re taking advantage of the situation."

In one positive development, Alitalia said it had resumed flights from Japan to Rome and Milan after securing southern routes into Italy.

"The flights will take about two hours longer than usual, but the company will manage it by carrying less cargo," said an Alitalia spokesman in Tokyo.

The Alitalia flights, which usually pass over Siberia, will instead take a southern route over Central Asia and Turkey to avoid the ash plume over much of Europe, the company said.

In Lagos, an Air France-Delta Airlines code share flight left for Toulouse in the south of France on Sunday night with an AFP journalist on board saying that "the plane was half empty as a lot of passengers had not been informed."

"That will doubtless be the only flight of the week," an unnamed Air France official said late Sunday.

"All the flights to Europe have been cancelled," said an official at Lagos\' Murtala Mohammed airport. "There are flights going to Africa and to Dubai but not to Europe."

"This is very unfortunate," said grounded traveller John Adeojo. "There is nothing one can do about it because this is nature at work."

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