Dateline: London
As part of the stranded pack of Americans stuck in London last month after Iceland’s volcano burped, and shut down the skies over Europe, the stranded masses were faced with a common dilemma … how are we ever going to get out of here? The news changed hour to hour. Saturday’s flights were cancelled, rescheduled to Monday. Sundays were cancelled, rescheduled to Tuesday, and so on.
We became increasingly frustrated by the realization that the details of when and how we would finally get home was beyond our control. Rather than just sit by passively and bemoan our condition, I recruited some fellow Skoll World Forum exiles, Drummond Pike, Dave Chen, and Jim Greenbaum, to join me in brainstorming our alternatives. We sized the market to be as many as 250 fellow Skoll Forum attendees, who all felt the pressure (some more than others) to find an alternative way home. So the problem was defined, the market sized, and the search for solutions began.
We could take a train to Denmark, and a ferry to Iceland (ironically, no flights were cancelled in Iceland, since the volcano was east of the airport, and planes had no problem taking off and landing). Infrequent ferry service made this option a poor choice. A ferry to France and a train to Paris was considered. However, flights from Paris were also at risk, and seats on the EuroStar were quickly sold out. How about a charter bus from London to Madrid? Spain had no problems with the volcanic ash, and a bus with two drivers could make the trip non-stop in about 18 hours, with only brief stops for fuel.
