Iceland Volcano – Will Airport Parking Cost You Extra?
The news that European airspace has been reopened has not lessened the disruption to travellers. Many people still face severe delays in getting back home – and when they do what else could it cost them? Imagine if you were due to return to your off airport parking lot a week ago and have been racking up additional daily charges ever since. These charges and sometimes run to as much as £12 per day in the UK.
Luckily for some, the airports operated by the British Airports Authority (BAA), which owns Heathrow, Stansted, Southampton, Edinburgh, Aberdeen and Glasgow airports have promised to waive additional airport parking charges. London Gatwick and Luton have said the same. But who knows what the dozens of off airport parking firms will do?
Some UK off airport parking providers have little information other than a notice giving the latest update on flight delays. Others have created special pages for update on the volcanic ash situation and how that affects parking charges. For example, Parking4Less has suspended its standard hotel and parking cancellation charges for the time being. BCP has said that with the exception of one of its parking lots, there will be no charge for additional days’ parking as a result of the volcanic ash delays. However there may be other headaches for travellers looking to clean on their insurance. BCP says:
We do not consider volcanic ash to be ‘adverse weather’, therefore there is no cover under the ‘UK Departure Assistance and Missed UK Connection’ and the ‘Missed Departure’ sections.
Additionally, it is not a stated reason to cancel or curtail a trip and therefore there is no cover under the ‘Cancellation, Curtailment and Trip Interruption’ section.
It looks like lots of people will be having tricky conversations with their travel insurance providers.
FlyPark has a long list of which parking lots will allow cancellations and amendments and which will not. It’s bad news for those who have booked Supersaver rates as they will no doubt end up being out of pocket. However many airports on their list have also waived their standard charges.
Airport parking charges aside, there’s still the question of when people were actually be able to get back home as planes are located all over the world in the wrong places. Disruption is likely to continue for some time.
To keep abreast of the latest, check out this Iceland volcano update page from the Telegraph as well as the NATS website.
Tags: Airport Parking, iceland, iceland volcano, off airport parking, offsite airport parking, travel, Travel News, volcanic ash
May 13th, 2010 at 5:26 am
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