Complete Shutdown Leads to Total Chaos: Volcano Grounds all British Flights

Britain’s airports were at a total standstill today for the first time in their history. There were chaotic scenes yesterday as tens of thousands of travellers arrived to find their flights cancelled.

At Heathrow, one of the world’s busiest airports, just a third of regular flights took off before airspace was closed. Of the usual 1,250 flights in and out of the airport every day, 418 arrivals and 481 departures were grounded – with 120,00 people hit by cancellations.

Check-in desks at Terminal One, usually a hive of activity, were shut, with departure boards showing all flights cancelled.

At Gatwick, the country’s second airport, three- quarters of flights were grounded, with 80,000 people affected.

A live travel map of flights over Europe showed the skies north of London completely clear.

Easyjet staff announced over a tannoy: ‘All our flights are cancelled. We are recommending you all go home, check the national news, and rebook online.’

Virgin Atlantic appeared to be open, with huge queues in front of the check-in desks, but there were no definitive announcements about flight departures.

Stansted airport was closed at midday. It quickly cleared of people as passengers realised they had no prospect of flights.
At Luton, just 50 of the 200 planned flights took off, affecting around 19,000 of the 25,000 passengers, while Manchester saw 76,000 passengers caught up in the chaos.

But the flying ban meant rail and ferry travel to the Continent was packed.

Huge queues built up at the Eurostar terminal in Paris as stranded British airline passengers desperately looked for a way home.
Fleets of taxis arrived from Charles de Gaulle and Orly airports with occupants all trying to get aboard.

Eurostar admitted it was struggling to keep up with demand, because of a huge increase in sales as passengers struggled to rearrange their travel plans.

Many fares had already sold out by 9.30am and by afternoon all seats were gone.

{Daily Mail/Noam Amdurski-Matzav.com Newscenter}