Alternatives for flights canceled by Volcano in Iceland : how to travel in europe by train, bus or boat ?

Flights are cancelled in all airports of Europe because of the volcanic ash of Iceland. Find alternatives for flights to London, Paris, Madrid and Rome here. Ryanair and Brussels airlines cancelled flights until monday. Airports are packed with blocked passengers.

Consider train or bus alternatives for air flights in Europe as the cloud from the volcano in Iceland keeps European airports shut for four days now at the end of the Easter holidays. Most airports in Western Europe are closed to flights. According to BBC and CNN news reports, Brussels Airlines (Virgin) and Ryanair cancelled all flight to Brussels until monday due to the volcanic ash cloud. KLM, Easyjet and Lufthansa are considering cancelling their flights. Iberia flights are limited. High-speed trains such as Thalys or Eurostar are a fast and cheap alternative.

People and passengers coming back from holidays are being blocked in the UK’s London Heathrow Airport (London LHR/EGLL), Birmingham, Stansted, Manchester, Luton and Gatwick airports, France’s Paris-Charles de Gaulle Airport (CDG/LFPG), Germany’s Frankfurt Airport (FRA/EDDF), Spain’s Barajas Airport Madrid (MAD/LEMD), Dutch Amsterdam Airport Schiphol (AMS/EHAM), Italy’s Leonardo da Vinci-Fiumicino Airport Rome (FCO/LIRF) and Germany’s Munich Airport (MUC/EDDM), as well as in other european airports. Thousands of people who spent holidays abroad are having trouble to fly back to home and work after the Easter holidays.

Alternatives for flights

Train

Fortunately there are alternatives to the air flights. In Spain, France, Italy, Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium, you can use the railways, such as the High Speed Train (HST) network, which is quite developed with trains linking major European cities such as London, Paris, Berlin, Rome, Madrid, Geneva, Brussels and Amsterdam.

Main European high-speed train (HST) connections

There are train connections close to the UK’s London Heathrow Airport by national rail, Thalys and SNCF trains at France’s Paris-Charles de Gaulle Airport (but be aware in France there is a railway strike), Deutsche Bahn trains at Germany’s Frankfurt Airport, Renfe trains at a cabs drive from Spain’s Barajas Airport Madrid , Trains from the Nederlandse Spoorwegen (NS) at Dutch Amsterdam Airport Schiphol, and Deutsche Bahn-trains at Germany’s Munich Airport. At Brussels Airport, there is a railway station of the NMBS-SNCB Belgian railways. Check for railway times, time schedules and frequency on the websites.

If you want to do it in a more excentric way, try the John Cleese option. The famous actor payed 4.000 euros for a taxi from Oslo to Brussels, where he took the Eurostar to get to London. Related article : High-speed train (HST) networks in europe

Busses

A company called Eurolines has a network of busses throughout Europe. Reservation of Eurolines tickets are quite cheap.

Air traffic has been disturbed by the ash of the eruption of a volcano in Eyjafjallajokull, Iceland. European flights are cancelled. Air Companies affected seem to include Germany Lufthansa, France and Netherlands Air France-KLM, Republic of Ireland Ryanair, amongst others.

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