Countless numbers of men and women have been stranded at Iceland’s airport with empty vending machines and no transportation to motels — together with ‘Billions’ star Damian Lewis

• Hundreds have been stranded at Iceland’s Keflavík International Airport thanks to negative weather conditions.

• Vacationers describe ‘otherworldly’ ailments, absence of food and drinking water, and no way to reach lodges.

• Caroline Rose, who at last returned to DC, also noticed actor Damian Lewis between the group.

Hundreds of people today have been stranded at Iceland’s Keflavík Worldwide Airport because of to poor weather conditions — and they’ve taken to social media to commiserate, sharing shots of “otherworldly” airport conditions through the December holiday journey rush.

Caroline Rose, a 26-year-aged researcher at New Traces Institute, a Washington-primarily based believe tank, shared a number of photographs to Twitter, like a selfie with 51-calendar year-previous “Billions” actor Damian Lewis.

About Twitter DM, Rose described the working experience as an “utter nightmare” to Insider and explained she asked Lewis, who appeared to be ready with his young children, for a picture — “I figured I might inquire for a selfie to have some kind of favourable memory of the night time,” Rose explained. “He was extremely type!” Lewis’s associates did not promptly reply to Insider’s ask for for comment.

Rose, who’d flown from Heathrow to Keflavík on Saturday, described her flight obtaining delayed “just about every many minutes or so, citing severe weather on the ground,” but, after contacting Icelandair to make “substitute arrangements,” she explained to Insider she was instructed to continue to be on the flight, which at some point still left London and landed in Keflavik.

Rose described fellow vacationers arriving in Keflavík late Saturday evening to uncover “otherworldly” disorders, stating “all of the restaurants shut down and vending equipment really considerably looted.”

“Quite a few of us were being starving and had to scrounge for any food items we could discover following the airline only gave us cereal bars to munch on though waiting around on the tarmac,” Rose mentioned, alluding to a two-hour delay she experienced waiting on the tarmac to de-board.

Tale continues

As the amount of stranded vacationers elevated, the available resort accommodations swiftly diminished.

1 TikToker, who explained in a December 21 TikTok that he’d landed in Iceland for an hour-lengthy layover and considering that been stranded for 4 days, described the “swarming” of passengers to find inns at the identical time. According to NBC Information, numerous motels nearby were presently completely booked around the weekend.

Though Airlines these types of as Icelandair and easyJet did offer travellers resort accommodations and reimbursements, even those lucky ample to book lodge stays were not always equipped to arrive at the beds they’d paid out to snooze in. Rose, who stated she booked a lodge space though even now on the tarmac, was one particular this kind of traveler.

“There were being no taxis or buses that could get us to close by motels or into Reykjavik,” she explained, “so I had to eat the expense of my resort booking for the night (they would not refund) and slumber on the airport ground alongside with hundreds of other folks.”

Vacationers making an attempt to decide up website visitors from the airport also shared unsuccessful tries on the “perilous generate” to retrieve visitors from the airport on December 19, which include a woman whose mother was at some point escorted by a “mountain rescue guy.”

Rose described tourists sleeping on the test-in baggage belt and on prime of baggage, as very well as these setting up “campsite-like circles” with strangers on the flooring to share whatever snacks they had on them.

“It was heartbreaking to see mothers and fathers check out and put small small children to rest,” Rose reported. “The airport was very cold.”

At about midnight, when rebookings started out to hit passengers’ accounts, Rose explained frustratingly convoluted or unattainable routes — she recalled 1 traveler being positioned on a Thursday flight out (it was, by then, Sunday morning) and yet another who would have to have to return to London and change airports for the duration of an hour-very long layover.

“I had to fly to Amsterdam, where I had a transfer in beneath 15 minutes to my flight back property to DC,” Rose, who is now at last again in Washington, said. “I produced it by the skin of my enamel.” However, Icleandair did eliminate her checked bag, she claimed.

A important 30-mile freeway that connects Keflavík to Reykjavík was cleared of snow as of Tuesday, and flights out of the airport have resumed, albeit with delays, in accordance to a statement from Icelandair.

“Our crew have labored tirelessly all through the night to rebook passengers on new flights, and they will continue to do this currently,” Icelandair explained in an update Wednesday early morning. “It is our complete priority to get passengers to where they require to be prior to Christmas.”

But travellers keep on being pissed off by the working experience and by the way airways handled the chaos.

Ryan Stevens, one more London traveler, is down 1,500 euros just after shelling out for a few nights in a hotel and two more booked flights, per reporting by Insider’s Rebecca Cohen, with no information and facts about being reimbursed.

“I’m fortunate, I didn’t go to the airport. I’m not stuck there. But I never know what to do,” Stevens previously advised Insider. “No person can blame airways for cancellations, but the aftercare just after these types of an celebration demands to be handled far better. I am trapped. No concept what the up coming go is. No assistance whatsoever.”

Rose felt similarly.

“I have a difficult time comprehension why Icelandair did (and ongoing to) irresponsibly make your mind up to deliver passengers to Keflavík when it knew all far too nicely that climate ailments have been so hazardous and would avoid persons from accessing a heat spot to rest, food items, and drinking water,” she said.

Icleandair did not right away answer to Insider’s ask for for comment.

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