The Icelandic volcano that has kept much of Europe land-bound is far from finished spitting out its grit, and offered up new mini-eruptions Saturday that raise concerns about longer-term damage to world air travel and trade.
Facing days to come under the volcano's unpredictable, ashy plume, Europeans are looking at temporary airport layoffs and getting creative with flight patterns to try to weather this extraordinary event.
WWE is no exception.
The Raw crew is set to finish its tour tonight in Belfast and then fly back to New York for Raw at the Izod Center. Whether, due to most airports in Europe being grounded, that will be possible has become a big question. The Miz just twittered saying it isn't looking good. Belfast was considered the best place to get out of, based on wind activity in Northern Europe.
The plan was for the crew to charter a flight from Belfast after today's show, but the airports in Northern Ireland have been shut down.
The Smackdown crew is in even worse shape. They have been on a bus trying to get to a place in Europe to fly back home. Chris Jericho twittered that it has been 36 hours since any of them have seen a bed and with no end in sight, joking that these past few days have taken years off his career, and he's looking at doing his retirement match on Monday night against MacGruber. He said the bus was about to break down. They were en route to Spain, but the airport they were looking at taking off from is apparently closed.
In addition, it was just described as a "minute by minute" situation regarding what is going to happen with television this week.
A worst case scenario was to tape shows in Europe, although I can't imagine the logistics of doing so. The crew from the U.S. like the McMahons, the announcers, writing team, producers (the ones who aren't on tour) etc. will have to get to whatever city, plus, you'd have to book a building like this minute, let everyone in free, somehow get word out at the last minute. It's a disaster.
No specific decison has been made regarding the taping of Monday and Tuesday's show (scheduled for the Mohegan Sun Casino) at this point.