If you’ve travelled recently, are travelling or are planning to travel, you could be forgiven for being a little confused.

The ash has been coming back in the last couple of weeks but only to the edge of Europe. Frustrating if you live in Belfast, Dublin or Gran Canaria, but it didn’t cause the same major problems as it did across the whole of Europe a month or so ago (and hey, if it means me staying a few more days in Gran Canaria, where’s the factor 50!).

There’s also the will they/won’t they strike British Airways situation. BA asked m’learned friends last week to get the whole thing declared illegal again just because they the union didn’t report that there were 11 spoilt papers at the last ballot. They duly did but then the union appealed and got that ruling overturned. Some flights were cancelled on the morning of the first planned strike but there was no real disruption.

At the time of writing, talks are being held at the Advisory, Conciliation and and Arbitration Service (ACAS), but as things stand, further strikes will be held on 24th – 28th May, 30th May – 3rd June and 5th – 9th June

Then, when you do get to the airport….oh the confusion! Some flights leaving, some flights not. And of course no-one is giving any information. As if they were doing it deliberately. In another life I worked in that kind of situation. Let me tell you, if those people behind those desks aren’t telling what’s going on, it’s because they don’t know. And nor does anyone else because the situation is changing every 5 minutes and people are generally very bad at communicating.

So what do you do? Click here for a great article by World First that sets out the situation as it is now and what you can claim and what you can’t. And if you’re worried about the British Airways strike, replace volcanic ash with BA and the same applies.

Oh, and Martin‘s going on holiday next month, I hope he’s got insurance!

Related posts:

1. Travel, ash and strikes
2. My flight’s been cancelled by volcanic ash – will my insurance cover me?
3. Going to Cuba? Get your travel insurance here!
4. British Airways cabin crew announce more strikes
5. Your travel insurance policy will cover you for Icelandic ash

Tags: Ash, beach, British Airways, cancellation, cover, Eyjafjallajokull, holiday, Iceland, Travel Tips, Volcano

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 18th, 2010 at 4:49 pm and is filed under Travel insurance, Travel Tips. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.