(Updated, April 20)
PAWTUCKET – The volcanic eruption in Iceland that has disrupted air travel to and from Europe since last Wednesday has affected some 1,500 travelers booked by Collette Vacations, Chief Financial Officer John Galvin said Monday.
“Some are stuck there, and can’t go home. Some had to cancel and rebook for later dates,” Gavlin told Providence Business News. Most Collette customers who had to cancel travel plans are rebooking tours for a later date, he said.
Some European airspace reopened to air travel on Tuesday after transport ministers agreed to allow planes to fly through places where the ash plume is thinnest, Bloomberg News reported. It may take six days to return all flights to normal, according to the International Air Transport Association.
While not wanting to understate or downplay the impact of the volcanic eruption, Galvin called it “a hiccup” for the travel industry, saying Collette Vacations is still on track to achieve its best year ever in 2010.
“Even given last week, when we had some very large-scale cancellations, we put more business on the books than came off – and several million came off,” Galvin said. “It’s been a terrific year so far in terms of passengers and revenues.”
Collette’s staff – teams on the road and those working in its offices in the United Kingdom, Vancouver, and at its headquarters in Pawtucket – have been working around the clock since the first eruption occurred on April 14, said Nicole Sullivan, the company’s supervisor of branding and communication.
“Our concern is safety first, for our employees and our customers,” she said.
One of the top priorities, Sullivan continued, has been communications. “We wanted our customers to be able to have a live person they could talk to. Our air team is working incredibly hard,” developing new flight schedules for travelers stranded in Europe, she said. “However people are contacting us – e-mail, phone calls, texting – we’re open to respond.”
Additional information is available at collettevacations.com.
