Timber industry consultant and former wood for good managing director Charles Trevor is just one of many industry executives to have been left stranded by the flight ban caused by the Icelandic volcano.
Mr Trevor told TTJ yesterday that he had been stuck in Dubai since last Thursday following the end of the Dubai Wood Show. He was hoping to catch a flight to Zurich to end his enforced stay in the Middle East.
Meanwhile, a Malaysian timber industry delegation to London led by the plantation and commodities minister Bernard Dompok, scheduled for April 23, has been cancelled after he became marooned in Moscow during an earlier leg of his programme of European visits.
The visit was to be the minister’s first UK timber industry meeting, to be attended by a number of UK timber companies. He had also been due to meet palm oil industry representatives during his visit.
Malaysian Timber Council chief executive Cheah Kam Huan found himself stranded in London after flying in before the flight restrictions were imposed. Mr Cheah and MTC London office director Sheam Satkuru-Granzella had been due to fly to Moscow and Kiev to join the minister for a series of meetings.
UK representatives from woodworking machinery companies SCM and Biesse, due to attend the Technodomus woodworking show in Rimini on April 20-24, also found themselves with no flights.
SCM UK managing director Gabriele De Col said a group of about 100 people, comprising SCM staff and customers, had been due to fly out to Rimini yesterday.
“We wanted to show customers the new machinery, so it’s really disappointing,” he said.
Mr De Col said SCM was already thinking of alternative ways to show new machinery to UK customers.
TTJ news editor Stephen Powney, due to attend the same show, also found his flight cancelled on Tuesday.
