With no clear end in sight to the cloud of ash bringing travel chaos to millions, European travellers turned to ground- and sea-based alternatives, with coach and ferry services reaping the dividends.

Pan-European coach company Eurolines said that some of its routes had seen growth of 600 percent after it put on hundreds of extra services and that "the demand for Eurolines services is still increasing."

Around 1,300 parents with children, as well as the elderly and the sick, trapped at Amsterdam-Schiphol airport were put up in hotels, although offers to lodge with 1,000 host families were not widely taken up.

"People prefer to stay at the airport, they hope there'll be a flight," said Marten Schvandt, spokesman for the airport's commune of Harleemmermeer.

As a result, 1,300 people slept at the airport, said spokeswoman Kathelijna Vermeulen, where they were provided with a bed as well as entertainment in the form of bussed-in musicians and circus acts.

Passengers have been stranded worldwide due to the plume of glass, sand and rock spewing from Iceland's Eyjafjoell volcano.

European and international agencies are set to ease flight restrictions on Tuesday after around 30 countries closed or restricted their airspace due to passenger safety fears, catching millions in a global backlog.

Other travellers found extraordinary solutions to the exceptional disruption, including 10 Italians who decided on Sunday to take a taxi home at the end of their skiing holiday beyond the Arctic Circle at Lyngen in Norway.

The taxi company laid on a minibus and three drivers to take turns at the wheel, with the meter expected to read between 7,000 and 14,000 euros (9,400 and 18,800 dollars) on completion of the 4,000-kilometre (2,500-mile) journey.

Austrian taxi drivers also cashed in on the crisis, with some offering "fixed rate for any European destination" from Vienna, usually starting at around 4,000 euros.

Car hire firms were also doing brisk business, although they could face problems in the short term, one Vienna car hire employee told the Austrian news agency APA.

"People are saying this is a unique opportunity for us to make lots of money, but they forget that our cars are in Poland, Portugal and I don't know how to get them back," they said.

Between 2,000 and 3,000 travellers camping at Montreal airport in Canada declined offers to stay with host families and were angered by rumours of flights leaving for southern France with seats unfilled.

"Air France admitted that a plane left for Nice on Saturday with at least 80 spare seats," said a woman who gave her name as Isabelle, trying to get home with her seven-year-old son and her handicapped mother.

"No one told the people trapped at the airport that it was possible to go."

While disruption was most intense in Europe, travellers around the world have been affected as the global chaos drags on with many of the stranded running out of cash after having to extend their stays.

At Beijing airport, anguished travellers were told their return home might be delayed for weeks.

"We're being really badly informed and Air France is not looking after us at all," complained Barbara Devuyst, 23, part of a group of students on a study trip who had been due to fly out on Monday but were told they might not be able to go home until May 6.

At New Delhi international airport Barbara Cekam, 50, was meant to leave for her hometown of Munich in Germany on Saturday with Lufthansa, but has been sleeping in the lounge.

Choking back tears ahead of her fourth night on a chair, she told AFP she would mark her 51st birthday in the overcrowded room on Tuesday.

"I can't stay in a hotel because I don't have any money," she said. "The trip was expensive and the hotels around the airport want to charge us more because they're taking advantage of the situation."

"All the flights to Europe have been cancelled," said an official at Lagos' Murtala Mohammed airport. "There are flights going to Africa and to Dubai but not to Europe."

"This is very unfortunate," said grounded traveller John Adeojo. "There is nothing one can do about it because this is nature at work."

earlier related report
Britain deploys navy as ash clouds vote race
London (AFP) April 19, 2010 - Prime Minister Gordon Brown sent in the navy Monday to rescue British passengers stranded by the volcanic ash cloud, as the crisis added an unexpected twist to campaigning for May 6 elections.

Opposition Conservative leader David Cameron also sought to claim credit for the idea, after a weekend in which the election race was thrown wide open by a surge in support for the third party, the Liberal Democrats.

Brown, whose poll ratings have been helped by previous crises, recalled ministers from the campaign trail Sunday for urgent talks on how to repatriate some 150,000 Britons stuck abroad after the ash grounded flights across Europe.

After fresh talks Monday, Brown said the aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal -- currently in northwest Scotland -- and amphibious assault ship HMS Ocean were being deployed to the English Channel to help those stranded return home.

A third ship, HMS Albion, was on its way to Spain to pick up British troops who had diverted there on their way home from the war in Afghanistan. The Ministry of Defence said "several hundred" others were stuck in Cyprus.

"This is the biggest challenge to our aviation transport network for many years," Brown said, adding he had spoken to Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero to discuss using Spain -- not under the ash cloud -- as an air transport hub to help Britons stranded outside Europe get home.

Britain closed its airspace Thursday and was one of the first countries to do so following the eruption a day earlier of the Eyjafjoell volcano in Iceland, which has sent a cloud of ash across Europe.

In addition to the naval effort, hopes of stranded tourists were boosted further when British air authorities said they would begin to lift restrictions Tuesday, starting from 7:00 am (0600 GMT) over Scotland and possibly moving south later.

European governments also announced they would open up the continent's airspace to new flights from Tuesday, after relentless pressure from airlines which have been hard hit by the shutdown.

Several newspapers Monday compared the planned British naval rescue to the 1940 evacuation of thousands of Allied soldiers from the beaches of northern France when they were cut off by the German army during World War II.

Britain is currently in the midst of the closest election campaign in decades, and although politicians have tried to present a united front, the Labour government's response could make or break its bid for re-election.

Brown briefed leaders of the opposition Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties on events at the weekend, and both publicly pledged their support for the government's naval plan Monday.

Conservative leader Cameron also insisted on taking some of the credit for the idea, however.

"The idea of using the Royal Navy was actually something the Conservative Party very constructively suggested and I am delighted the government has taken it up," he said.

Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg, who experienced a boost in polls following a much-praised performance in a leaders' television debate on Thursday, also supported the government's approach.

His three young sons are among those stranded in Spain, where they had been visiting his Spanish in-laws.

"I fully support what the government's doing," Clegg told the BBC.

He and Cameron have reason to be worried, however, as Brown has in the past benefited from crises, when his oft-criticised seriousness is seen as an asset.

Shortly after he succeeded Tony Blair as prime minister in June 2007, Brown's handling of foiled car bombings, floods and a major foot-and-mouth disease outbreak was credited with a surge in his poll ratings.

This collapsed within months after he cancelled widely anticipated snap elections, and Labour has trailed the Conservatives ever since.

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