I feel rather sorry for the Sony World Photography Awards (SWPA) organisers because their annual big event in Cannes, France, took place yesterday, in the aftermath of the big Icelandic volcanic ash hiatus that struck the airline industry over the last week. But it could have been worse; I'm told that the gala event turn out was actually quite good as some flights that had seemed doomed benefited from the lifting of restrictions on Wednesday, while others had worked hard to make alternative travel arrangements. It might have been very different if the event had been scheduled for just a day or two earlier in the week.

I had been invited to this year's event, but it's tough times economy-wise and couldn't justify the cost. Now I'm just so relieved that I didn't accept the invitation! In any case, I'm still cross with the SWPA for continuing their policy of excluding amateur photographers from being able to compete for the top SWPA L�Iris d�Or prize. Shouldn't the pictures be judged rather than whether or not you earn your living from photography?

But back to luck and travel. At the last Photokina trade show in Cologne, 2008, I was a victim of an air traffic control outage in the UK and my flight home was cancelled, along with the flights of dozens of other journalists and staff from photography industry companies. In the end I made it home the following day on Eurostar, but only at the expense of my already stretched budget. Enquiries about insurance came to nought, although I did get my air far back. Of course I'd been booked on Easyjet, so the refund wasn't that uplifting!

A few years earlier, a group of us were returning from a HP event in Belgium. We had arrived at the airport early and our plucky PR minder offered to pay for us to be booked onto the earlier plane. This she duly did, only for that plane to be delayed by 6 hours and the flight we were booked on originally leaving on time.

And then there was the time I missed a plane to Germany for a press event because of a blockage on the motorway to Heathrow airport; on second thoughts, I'd rather nor remember that (but I did get to the event on time by taking the next flight).

Finally, a memorable trip to Austria for a launch event in Salzburg at the end of January in 2003 - southern England was hit by a blizzard that left motorists stranded on the M11 motorway, which is the principle way of getting to London Stansted airport. I was due to fly to Vienna to catch a flight to Salzburg from Stansted on the morning of the 31st January. Stansted was closed, so I assumed that was that. Remarkably, the PR people who had arranged the travel managed to re-book me on a flight from Heathrow late that afternoon. After arriving at Vienna late that evening, instead of taking a flight to Salzburg, we had to go by minibus through the night and almost 200 miles, in a blizzard, and arrived at the venue at 5AM. It was also arranged for my car to be brought to Stansted for the return leg of the trip.

That particular event was also remembered for the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster that happened on the morning of the day we arrived in Salzburg.

For that brave crew, the result of their travel problem was rather more fundamental.