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Emirates European Flight updates:

17 May : Early morning London flights 007 to LHR and 011 to LGW cancelled. 145 to Amsterdam leaving 80 minutes late.

28 and 29 April : Two additional DXB to LGW flights - EK7013 at 11.15; EK7015 at 14.00. Return flights are at 17.15 and 20.10

27 April: Three additional DXB to LGW flights - EK7013 at 11.15; EK7015 at 14.00 and EK7017 at 16.00. Return flights are at 17.15; 20.10 and 2200

26 April Four additional DXB to LGW flights - EK 7003 at 02.00, EK7013 at 11.00; EK7015 at 14.00 and EK7017 at 16.30. Return flights are at 08.00 17.15; 20.10 and 22.30.

26 - 29 April : Between 26th to 29th April inclusive, Emirates flight EK347 from Kuala Lumpur to Dubai will be re-routed via Bangkok, picking up passengers and easing the operational backlog in the Thai capital.

The flight stopping in Bangkok will operate as EK8347, departing Kuala Lumpur at 17:30 and arriving at Bangkok at 18:35, while the onward connection will leave Bangkok at 20:00 arriving in Dubai at 23:05.

Normal departure of EK347 from KUL is 1930.

25 April : Three additional DXB to LGW flights - EK7013 at 11.15; EK7015 at 14.00 and EK7001 at 16.00. Return flights are at 17.15; 20.10 and 2200

24 April : One extra LGW today - EK3015 will depart at 17.15 from Dubai. Returning as EK3016 at 2315 from LGW.

23 April : Two extra LGW flights operated - EK3015 at 09.00 and EK3011 at 17.15.

22 April : Two additional flights to LGW - EK 7015 - left at 930am this morning. EK 3013 departs at 1630.  All other European flights operate as scheduled. In total 5 flights today to LGW.

21 April : Advice for Europe bound passengers still in Dubai: even if you don't hold a confirmed reservation go to the Emirates ticket desks at terminal 3 today and tomorrow. EK is not accepting passengers from Asia, Africa, South Asia who have bookings to the UK and Germany through Dubai until 23 April in order to clear the backlog of transit passengers. Therefore flights that were fully booked to the UK and Germany now have space from Dubai. But you will probably need to be at the airport to battle for a seat!

For up to date information check flight status at www.emirates.com

The Ash Cloud from the 14 April eruption of Icelandic volcano Eyjafjallajokull is spreading south and flights across much of Europe have now been halted. The impact on Emirates European flights is significant. Flight cancellations will be updated on this page.

Note that the black box means that there is no PM flight to this destination. LHR is 5 daily, LGW is 3 daily. OK is flight is operating. ? to be confirmed.

Other Operational Notes:

Travel Projections.

The back log of passengers with canceled flights is huge. Many will now have to be rescheduled on flights that are already largely full. For example Cathay Pacific is saying that all its flights to Europe for the rest of this month are fully booked.

Airlines like Emirates and Qatar rely to moving passengers from Asia and the Pacific through their Dubai hubs and onto Europe. For the moment passengers that are supposed to be connecting onto Europe and not being boarded at their point of origin. So a passenger due to fly BKK-DXB-Europe is being left in BKK until flights to Europe become available. There is simply not the space in Dubai hotels to bring people part way to Dubai, or other ME hub airports.

By Wednesday 21st Europe should be returning to normal. The UK is still under the ash cloud due to its proximity to Iceland and the effect of the North Atlantic winds. Central Europe including Germany, France and Switzerland should be OK on Wednesday.

Twitter

If you are on twitter follow the hashtag - #ashtag

And while you are waiting for a flight this is a fun read !

A world without planes

By Alain de Botton 20 April 2010

The philosopher, writer and recent writer-in-residence at Heathrow airport imagines a world without aircraft.

In a future world without aeroplanes, children would gather at the feet of old men, and hear extraordinary tales of a mythic time when vast and complicated machines the size of several houses used to take to the skies and fly high over the Himalayas and the Tasman Sea.

The wise elders would explain that inside the aircraft, passengers, who had only paid the price of a few books for the privilege, would impatiently and ungratefully shut their window blinds to the views, would sit in silence next to strangers while watching films about love and friendship - and would complain that the food in miniature plastic beakers before them was not quite as tasty as the sort they could prepare in their own kitchens.

The elders would add that the skies, now undisturbed except by the meandering progress of bees and sparrows, had once thundered to the sound of airborne leviathans, that entire swathes of Britain's cities had been disturbed by their progress.

And that in an ancient London suburb once known as Fulham, it had been rare for the sensitive to be able to sleep much past six in the morning, due the unremitting progress of inbound aluminium tubes from Canada and the eastern seaboard of the United States.

At Heathrow, now turned into a museum, one would be able to walk unhurriedly across the two main runways and even give in to the temptation to sit cross-legged on their centrelines, a gesture with some of the same sublime thrill as touching a disconnected high-voltage electricity cable, running one's fingers along the teeth of an anaesthetised shark or having a wash in a fallen dictator's marble bathroom.

Uncynical, unvigilant

Everything would, of course, go very slowly. It would take two days to reach Rome, a month before one finally sailed exultantly into Sydney harbour. And yet there would be benefits tied up in this languor.

Those who had known the age of planes would recall the confusion they had felt upon arriving in Mumbai or Rio, Auckland or Montego Bay, only hours after leaving home, their slight sickness and bewilderment lending credence to the old Arabic saying that the soul invariably travels at the speed of a camel.

This new widespread 'camel pace' would return travellers to a wisdom that their medieval pilgrim ancestors had once known very well. These medieval pilgrims had gone out of their way to make travel as slow as possible, avoiding even the use of boats and horses in favour of their own feet.

They were not being perverse, only aware that if one of our key motives for travelling is to try to put the past behind us, then we often need something very large and time-consuming, like the experience of a month long journey across an ocean or a hike over a mountain range, to establish a sufficient sense of distance.

Whatever the advantages of plentiful and convenient air travel, we may curse it for being too easy, too unnoticeable - and thereby for subverting our sincere attempts at changing ourselves through our journeys.

How we would admire planes if they were no longer there to frighten and bore us. We would stroke their steel dolphin-like bodies in museums and honour them as symbols of a daunting technical intelligence and a prodigious wealth.

We would admire them like small boys do, and adults no longer dare, for fear of seeming uncynical and unvigilant towards their crimes against our world.

Despite all the chaos and inconvenience of our disrupted flight schedules, we should feel grateful to the unruly Icelandic volcano - for allowing us briefly to imagine what a flight-less future would envy and pity us for.

Story from BBC NEWS: