Five Things You Should do When Your Flight Gets Canceled From a Volcanic Eruption

Breanna Rigg
May 14, 2015
4 min read

It is humbling to be reminded of the fact that in life, there are thousands of circumstances that are completely and utterly beyond our control. You can plan out every last detail of your day, week, or in our case, vacation, and something so unprecedented can change everything.

We had booked our flight to Costa Rica in early March and eagerly spent months plotting out the areas we wanted to visit and the activities we wanted to do. As the months approaching our flight turned into weeks, then days, we grew more and more excited for our trip. The day of our flight, we woke up at 5:00am, drove two hours to the airport, and waited at our gate for almost three hours before discovering that our flight to San Jose had been canceled due to the volcanic eruption. The Turrialba volcano had given us its most powerful eruption in 20 years, and the volcanic ash had severely reduced visibility and made it impossible to fly into the airport. Frustrated and annoyed, we gathered up our bags and made our way to the airline’s front desk with the crowds of equally annoyed people who were supposed to be on the flight with us.

At this point, we had three options:

Get a refund, go home, and be racked with disappointment and bitterness
Reschedule our flight for the next earliest available, which was three days later and would have cut our vacation time in half
Pick a new destination to fly to and spend a full week on vacation

As you can imagine, we went with option #3, and chose one of the first flights we saw, which just so happened to be going to St. Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Thus began the most frantic and harried two hours of my life. Without a cell phone, we relied on the airport pay phones and my iPod Touch to cancel all of our Costa Rica reservations and research St. Thomas. Knowing literally nothing about the Virgin Islands in general, we had no idea where to stay or what to expect. Thankfully, we managed to get all of our ducks in a row, and had a wonderful vacation exploring the beautiful island of St. Thomas.

There are a five main things to do when your flight is canceled due to a volcano eruption, or something similarly stressful and unprecedented:

Remain calm

When seemingly solid plans crumble, it can oftentimes seem as though your entire world crumbles with it. As humans, we rely heavily on stability in our lives, and when our balance is shaken, we can react by panicking, stressing, and becoming aggravated with those around us. For the sake of your own state of mind, as well as the others’ around you, it is better to stay calm and relaxed.

Be flexible

People can get stuck in one certain mindset, and this stubbornness does not bode well in stressful situations. Instead of “your way or the highway” it is better to compromise and recognize that even though things did not go your way, they can work out in a different way.

Work as a team

It is extremely important to not turn on the people you are with during this time, and recognize that nobody is to blame. By working as a team, it is easier to solve the problem and reduce the level of stress, and being able to support and rely on your partner is crucial to make the best of every situation.

Be resourceful

Think outside the box and utilize the resources around you. In our case, we were stuck at the airport without a cell phone and relying only on my iPod, which still has My Chemical Romance albums on it and hasn’t been turned on since 2010. Don’t be afraid to ask questions and seek out alternative methods of accomplishing your goals. You may feel like a character out of an 80’s movie, hunched over a payphone, but it’ll get the job done.

Accept that EVERYTHING is beyond your control

This is probably the most difficult thing for me to accept. Life would be so much less stressful if I could micromanage every last detail of my life, but that’s not only incredibly unrealistic, it’s also boring. What’s life without a little adventure and challenge? It keeps things exciting and energetic, and prevents us from falling into the crippling, monotonous routines that so many people seem to be stuck in. There’s a certain level of bliss that comes with relinquishing control and simply letting things happen. Try it- I promise the world won’t crumble beneath you.

When life throws you a curveball, you can either laugh about it, or cry about it. We chose to laugh about our situation and ended up having a great time, despite the initial insanity that ensued. I always try to remind myself that it’s the journey that is the most exciting- not the end result. We can oftentimes get too caught up in reaching our destination and that prevents us from enjoying the ride and experiencing the adventure that comes along with it. Enjoy your own journey, whether it’s the stress and excitement of a last-second change in vacation plans, or something else, because it’s what we hold on to when we’ve arrived at our final destination.