When the Eyjafjallajökull volcano in Iceland erupted in spring 2010, airspace over Europe was closed for eight days. This created severe delays to outbound flights and left thousands of holidaymakers stranded overseas. Thomas Cook Group's response was true to our PROUD value: we really were Obsessed with Customer Service.

As a Group, we have a comprehensive emergency procedure, with teams of people identified as responsible for taking action in a crisis. When it became clear that the airspace would be closed for more than 24 hours, we invoked our 'orange-level' emergency status (red, the highest level, is invoked when lives are at risk). Incident rooms were set up, with additional employees brought in to cover the administrative tasks and airline operations required to deal with delayed outbound flights. Throughout the disruption, communication with our customers was a priority: we set up telephone hotlines as well as regularly updating our websites.

Customers waiting at airports for delayed flights were given food and drink by Thomas Cook staff. Meanwhile, we looked at all possibilities for getting our passengers to their destinations, including transferring them by coach from closed airports, such as Glasgow, to nearby ones that were initially open, such as Manchester. However, it soon became apparent that the airspace closure would be extended to more airports and could last for days.

At this point, we had to make the decision to cancel flights. This is something we would normally avoid at all costs, but with no firm date on the horizon for the airspace to reopen, it would have been irresponsible for us to delay flights indefinitely. Our customers whose flights were cancelled could choose to reschedule to a later date at no cost or to receive a full refund.

With no flights expected in or out of Europe for days, we also needed to look after the 180,000 customers who were on holiday with our companies. Most remained in their holiday accommodation until the flight ban was lifted, with Thomas Cook Group paying the full cost for their rooms and three meals per day. Even those customers who had only booked flights, not accommodation, with us were given a place to stay. Here we went the extra mile to give exceptional service.

With an average of around 200 people per aircraft, bringing 180,000 people home is no small logistical feat. When the airspace reopened, we laid on additional flights, returning everyone home within five days of the airspace reopening. For those customers closer to home, we used road and sea transport where possible, rather than waiting for flights to resume. For example, many Thomas Cook UK customers holidaying in Spain and Portugal were brought home by coach and ferry. Coaches were also hired to bring all Neilson's ski customers back to the UK. And for around 1,000 lucky holidaymakers in Spain and Portugal, we were able to offer a brand new, fully serviced Royal Caribbean cruise ship to take them from Northern Spain to England, all at no charge to our customers.

We believe, and our customer feedback endorses this, that our customers were extremely well looked after. They benefited from the fact that we are an international Group: our German airline, for example, was able to help bring back UK customers, and our employees in the UK helped to look after Thomas Cook India customers until they were able to fly home. Little wonder, then, that we received customer feedback like this:

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