FERRIES:COMPLETE STRANGERS before their journeys began a few days ago, five friends stepped off the Dún Laoghaire ferry from Holyhead yesterday, bonded by shared experiences of flight cancellations and airport chaos.
Louise Murphy, Conor Coakley, Gareth McGrory, Christopher Reid and Charlie Boner all realised that, despite having arrived at Heathrow International Airport from different corners of the globe, they all possessed a simple yet seemingly unattainable goal – to get home to Ireland for Christmas.
Unfortunately, they had all seen their best-laid travel plans fail to materialise as the weather continued to wreak havoc on flights over the weekend.
So the quintet abandoned the planes that had abandoned them and hired a car together, drove across Britain and boarded a ferry that finally brought them home yesterday morning.
Gareth had started his voyage home on Friday night – a five-hour flight from Cambodia to South Korea. It would end up being the easiest leg of his journey by far. After a five-hour delay on the flight bound for Heathrow, he soon found himself adding a surprise destination.
“We were 45 minutes from Heathrow and they said that they had to divert us to Brussels, something to do with the weather,” said Gareth.
“They [Asiana Airlines] had nobody in Brussels so you couldn’t actually talk to anyone and figure out what was going on. We ended up staying the night, just sleeping on the floor of the terminal.”
It was not the only night he spent sleeping in Brussels International Airport.
After a further day of delays and cancellations, Gareth was at least afforded a mattress on Sunday night when the Belgian Red Cross came in to provide what he described as “beds from the Vietnam war”.
The weather, however, did not show much sympathy for his plight and Monday brought with it the same conditions, leading to more delays. Eventually the promised aircraft did arrive and Gareth finally left Belgium at 5pm, landing in a “chaotic” Heathrow.
After seeing an information screen littered with yet more cancellations, he ventured towards a car hire booth. There he met the other four similarly merry travellers, each of whom had an impressive story of their own to tell.
Together they decided to take control of the situation. Despite knowing each other only a matter of minutes, they hired a car together (costing £700/€830) and drove to Holyhead where they caught the ferry that finally assured them passage home for the holidays.
Similar tales were echoed by many of their fellow fatigued travellers who stepped out into the Dublin snow yesterday morning.
Maria Flood and Damien Mooney from Dublin and Meath respectively had endured four hours on a freezing train station platform in an attempt to get to Holyhead after their flights from Stansted and Gatwick were cancelled.
Erica Phelan and Emma Claffey both from Dublin said that the ordeal of the journey home had certainly spoiled their weekend away in Edinburgh with friend Niamh McHugh from Galway.
The three girls had slept in Crewe train station after their flight home had been cancelled. They would gladly have accepted any “Vietnam war beds” as all they could find were metal chairs to rest on.
It was an experience shared by Jessica Whyte, whose mother and younger brother were waiting in Dún Laoghaire terminal to welcome her home with a big hug.
“She texted me at 4.30am saying that she was sleeping on the floor in Crewe train station and was getting the next train at 8am to Holyhead. I think the cafe wasn’t open until 7.30 and she was just dying to get a hot drink” her mother said.
She said she was just delighted that her daughter was eventually home and could enjoy the build-up to Christmas.