As Flanders Today went to press, federal mobility minister Etienne Schouppe confirmed that the ban would continue until at least 20.00 on Monday. In Charleroi, Ryanair announced it would not be flying until Wednesday at the earliest.

Brussels Airlines announced that it would not be operating flights until midday on Tuesday, at the earliest. The company said the ash-cloud emergency had cost it “millions per day”, including reimbursement of tickets for cancelled flights and hotel costs for stranded passengers.

Meanwhile, for those stranded abroad, an end to the flight ban doesn’t necessarily bring an end to their troubles. Once airlines start flying again, priority goes to passengers booked on scheduled flights; those who booked after flights were cancelled have to queue for spare places or hope for additional flights to be scheduled.

In three US cities – New York, Atlanta and San Francisco – 156 students of Multimedia and Communications Technology at the Howest college in Kortrijk enjoyed several extra sight-seeing days. “The trip back is hellish to organise,” admitted one of the accompanying teachers, but parents were being kept up to the minute via Facebook and email.

In Singapore, nine members of a Belgian parliamentary delegation opted for a democratic solution when five places suddenly became available on a direct flight to Athens. The members divided up the seats according to the Dhondt system – a Belgian system of proportional representation by which seats in parliament are allocated according to the votes cast in an election. The result: immediate departure for one member each of CD&V, MR and PS, one for Open VLD member Hilde Vautmans, and one for her party colleague and speaker of the parliament Patrick Dewael.

On Monday, Belgium’s biggest tour operator, Thomas Cook, announced it would be flying passengers stranded on the Canary Islands and in North Africa to one of three airports – Lisbon, Girona and Naples – from where they could return to Belgium by bus. The company has already arranged buses for passengers unable to fly home from Budapest, Vienna, Prague and resorts in Spain and announced there would be no outward-bound flights until 21 April at the soonest.

Jetair and Brussels Airlines also hired buses to bring passengers back from destinations such as Spain and Greece. The problem soon turned from a lack of flights to a shortage of buses, with coach operators quick to take advantage of the rocketing demand by pushing their prices up.

Some passengers took arrangements into their own hands. In Portugal, a kindly hotel boss helped 50 Flemings rent a bus which brought them home for €50 each. In Rome, a group of tourists stranded at the airport managed to find takers enough to fill four coaches bound for Zaventem.

The air travel shutdown didn’t just affect holidaymakers and politicians. Cut flowers from Kenya withered on the tarmac. Frozen fish from Uganda was left to thaw. Flemish retro rock band De Kreuners had to go onstage without their drummer, who was stuck in Dubai. Olympic bobsleigh partners Eva Willemarck and Elfje Willemsen were stranded in Tenerife, as was Olympic gold medallist Tia Hellebaut. The King himself was blocked at his private villa at Grasse in the south of France when Nice airport closed.

Comedy legend John Cleese made awkward headlines when he commissioned a taxi for €3,800 to bring him from Oslo to Brussels, where he planned to stay overnight before going on to London. Cleese was tailed part of the way by a camera crew from VTM, and on arrival he assured them it was no laughing matter. “The way you have pestered me and hunted me down is both discourteous and very unkind, and I think the producer concerned should be ashamed of himself,” Cleese told the camera.

Cleese, at €3,800 for 1,500km, got a slightly worse deal than five businessmen who hired a taxi from Minsk in Belarus to bring them back to Brussels. For that 1,600km trip they paid €2,000. Flemish businessman Geert Van Brussel paid €1,000 to have a Polish taxi driver bring him all the way from Poznan to Lochristi in East Flanders, about 850km. The bill might be a bit steep, Van Brussel said, but he had to be back in order to fly to Mexico on Tuesday. Hope springs eternal.

EU transport ministers were due to meet in Brussels as Flanders Today went to press to review the flight ban. Pressure is coming from the airline industry, backed by test flights carried out by Air France and Lufthansa, which suggest the danger has abated.

Countries in the south of Europe are slowly coming back into operation, and airports in the north want to do the same. The possibility exists, however, of further eruptions. The last time the Eyjafjallajökull erupted, in 1821, it lasted for two years.