Volcanic ash cloud sees airport hotels reach max occupancy

The UK’s air traffic control service NATS advised the suspension of all flights entering or leaving British airspace on Thursday evening, until 1am tomorrow (17 April) at the earliest, as the ash could be dangerous to flying aircraft.

The grounding means that hoards of passengers due to leave the UK on holiday or to return home, have been forced to either bed down at airports or find a hotel for the night.

Premier Inn hotels situated close to Newcastle, Gatwick and Heathrow airports were fully booked last night and tonight, as were all hotels in the London area. Travelodge also said that all their airport hotels in the UK were at maximum occupancy last night as they witnessed a ‘large influx of people’.

Heathrow​

Radisson Edwardian, which has a 427-bedroom hotel at Heathrow, another 11 hotels in London and one in Manchester has seen a keen uplift in the number of rooms booked in all properties since planes were grounded. Its Heathrow hotel is fully-booked for the next few days.
 
Gavin Sanders, hotel manager of Radisson Edwardian Heathrow Hotel said: "There has been a dramatic increase in the number of rooms booked over the last couple of days and we are fully booked this weekend.

"There have been 3,000 rooms booked across the Heathrow hotel estate as a result of the current situation and Radisson Edwardian is doing all it can to accommodate guests." 

Gatwick​

The 518-bedroom Sofitel Hotel at Gatwick Airport’s North Terminal was also last night booked to maximum occupancy, with many of the hotel’s foreign guests also choosing to stay on an extra night tonight.

Dianne Game, cluster sales manager for Sofitel Gatwick, said the hotel’s sister properties the Mercure and Arora hotels in nearby Crawley, were also at maximum occupancy.

“We have an agreement with airlines locally to offer discounted pricing to passengers, so we aren’t currently selling our full rack rate,” she said. “We have also turned our 220-cover conference room into a rolling buffet for those stranded. All three of our dining facilities at Sofitel Gatwick were very popular last night as we are also connected to the terminal.

“We are trying hard to accommodate all passengers and are communicating well with the airlines to ensure they are all well looked after, although understandably many are very disappointed this has happened.”

Flight update​

The ash cloud, created by a volcano underneath Iceland’s Eyjafjallajoekull glacier, contains tiny rock, glass and sand particles that could jam aircrafts’ engines.

NATS is expected to make a further announcement at 14.30pm today (16 April) on when flights may restart their schedules.