Above: A group of European tourists jump together for joy at the Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport Wednesday after obtaining boarding passes for flights back home. Below: A postal worker stationed at the airport takes a break amid a mountain of mail bags destined for Europe and Africa that has been growing as a result of flight cancellations in the past few days. Central News Agency

China Airlines and Eva say they plan to add flights to take grounded residents back to Taiwan ASAP

Hundreds of Taiwanese travelers who had been stranded in Europe for nearly a week began returning home Wednesday.

A China Airlines (CAL) flight took off bound for home on the airline's Rome-Delhi-Taipei route.

"We're finally going home!" was the refrain of many relieved passengers after receiving their boarding passed for the flight home.

A Taiwanese businessman said he had being trying to find a way home for a week before getting on the flight in Rome.

"You feel helpless when your heart is in Taiwan but you can't fly back," he said.

Nearly 2,000 Taiwanese passengers were stranded in Europe when a volcanic eruption in Iceland spewed massive amounts of ash into the atmosphere on April 14, forcing the cancellation of flights around the continent.

With Rome the most likely of European destinations serviced by Taiwanese carriers to be reopened first, some Taiwanese travelers made their way to the Italian airport, hoping to catch an early flight home.

Two Taiwanese businessmen recalled their ordeal after they failed to get a flight home from Milan. Unable to book seats on the Eurostar train between Milan and Rome, they were forced to take local trains to the Italian capital, said one of the businessmen, surnamed Huang.

"We had to change trains four or five times to get here," he said, adding, "We both suffer from high blood pressure and we had to return to Taiwan as soon as possible because we were running out of medicine."

The two men originally bought tickets for a flight on Beijing-based Air China in Milan destined for the mainland. They thought they could then catch a connection to Taiwan. But Air China later told them that there would be no flights until May 1, Huang said.

Two of CAL's passenger flights that had been stranded at Frankfurt Airport left for Taipei, while another passenger flight stuck in Amsterdam also returned home.

Flights bound from Taiwan to Europe are gradually returning to normal as the effect of volcanic ash drifting from Iceland diminishes.

Another of Taiwan's major airlines, EVA had originally cancelled its Bangkok-London flight, but after the plane had taken off from Taipei bound for Bangkok, Wednesday, it learned London's Heathrow Airport had re-opened and decided in mid-flight that it would continue on to London after transiting through Bangkok.

EVA later announced its three regular flights to Europe would be back in the air. The three routes are Taipei-Bangkok-Vienna, Taipei-Bangkok-London and Taipei-Paris.

Both EVA and CAL said they were planning and applying for additional flights, hoping to get around 2,000 Taiwanese passengers still stranded in Europe back home to Taiwan as soon as possible.

China Daily/CNA

(HK Edition 04/22/2010 page4)