Passengers marooned in India blame BA for ticket chaos

Dozens of British passengers, still stranded by the volcanic ash which snarled international air traffic for six days, queued for hours in steaming heat at Delhi's Indira Gandhi airport in pursuit of scarce seats back to the UK. Not for the first time, they came away empty-handed with nothing more to look forward to than another night on the terminal floor or a trek back to the hotel and hours on hold with an airline reservations centre.
After a week in which air traffic in Britain and Europe returned to close to normal, long-haul travellers from Mumbai, Dubai, Miami and beyond found themselves left behind, frustrated at becoming the forgotten victims of the Icelandic eruption.
"The situation at the airport is really quite serious," said Elizabeth Atwell from west London, who is with a group of 12 trying to get home from Delhi with British Airways. "There is a very high terror alert and there are armed guards everywhere at the airport. It's impossible to get into the building without a ticket for travel.
"It is really difficult to talk to BA. People are paying backhanders to get into the terminal. The last time we were at the airport there were 65 people [in line for seats] and only two people were allowed on the plane because they were deemed emergency medical cases. There are thousands more outside waiting to leave."
BA in particular seemed to be attracting anger after it emerged that the airline is not giving priority to stranded customers and has placed spare seats on the open market.
Marooned passengers can take seats at no extra charge, but the problem seems to be in getting hold of them – with phone lines jammed for hours, website access patchy and staff providing conflicting information.
The airline insists it is doing everything it can. "We understand how frustrated our stranded customers feel," a spokesman said, adding that extra flights will bring passengers home from Delhi, New York, Hong Kong, the Maldives and Bangkok this weekend.
24/04/10 Robert Booth and Matthew Weaver/The Guardian, UK

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Categories: Airports Apr 2010, Foreign Apr 2010