The End of the Road

Eruptions from volcano Eyjafjallajökull in Iceland were continuing periodically with debris being emitted into the atmosphere. This was stopping us getting anywhere. I had now been in Bandar for 10 days and there still didn't appear the possibility of me returning to London by any normal route. We had had various choices put to us - we could stay put and just wait it out but would have to start paying our way, or the airline would return us to Australia free of charge and return us to England as and when, but not before 7th May.
I cannot tell you how helpful the airline were and how well they looked after us and were prepared to look after us. I really cannot fault them and would travel with them again.
After a couple more days we heard that Heathrow had reopened. The airline called a meeting with all the Brits and told us that they would not fly unless they felt it was safe and that our choices still stood. By mid afternoon another meeting was called where they told us they would fly us all back that evening. Which is what they did.
They are a small airline of 7 planes only. They have one timed flight into Heathrow each day. They cannot transgress from this. In other words they could not have taken us to Madrid, for instance, because they were not allowed to land any other place than Heathrow. If they missed their time slot they would have to wait until the next one next day.

The things that they did for us:
On our return to Brunei, on the Dubai flight, they had organised everything so that we knew exactly what we had to do at the airport, got us on ready waiting coaches and took us to a hotel all within one and a half hours.
Put us up in a 4* hotel with 3 meals a day free of charge.
Kept a member of the airline in the hotel all the time to answer questions.
Gave us daily updates of the situation, sometimes twice a day.
When they realised that it wasn't going to end quickly, they gave us the updates at a time that enabled us to take advantage of going out and seeing Brunei.
They put on entertainment such as an outdoor BBQ, a high tea invitation in a sister hotel and a musical and sing song evening by a local band.
They gave us the choices of staying in Bandar at a reduced rate after 7 days.
We had the choice of returning free to our original destination in Australia and then a free ticket home after May 7th.
I thought they were a wonderful airline and people. It could have been a tricky situation with a plane load of British. But apart from the odd one or two (always the odd one or two) I think they won everyone over. Considering the reports on the news of how others were looked after I consider myself more than lucky.
Thank you Royal Brunei Airlines