The last few weeks has been interesting for International travellers with the Icelandic volcano, even more interesting than the Christmas with the disruption by snow. Both events caused strain which, unless you had tech with you, monumentally knocked you down.
The combination of Tripit, Flight Stats, iPhone, 3G, Wifi and Laptop saved my bacon in both instances. The Christmas Weather cancelled my flight on the day before Christmas with just four hours notice, but tech allowed me to book an earlier (and running) flight, and refund my cancellation so I was on my flight home less than an hour and a half later.
With the Volcano, the effect was much more disastrous. Tech allowed me to determine that I had no way of doing the return trip home for the weekend without spending most of it travelling. It then allowed me, through the excellent booking.com, to find a hotel room for the weekend just with the right timing after all the cancellations were rolling in but before everyone else had realised they were going to be there for some time and booked all the rooms!
Not everything was good however and both Easyjet and BA got bad marks this time. Easyjet for not allowing the simple cancellation claim online, and BA for allowing only the cancellation of Both legs of a journey which had necessarily became only needed one way. Very poor IT systems in fact.
Other than that though, I’ll bet you it was much better than what it was like pre-Internet and Mobile access. In fact, that probably would be much like my siblings experience being trapped in New York with only a standard mobile phone.
Till the next time.