It's a strange new, old world ...

PARIS - Europe has received a sharp shock of awareness about its addiction to cheap jet travel.

The skies have been empty, placing the usually dynamic and open continent under a pall and sense of isolation.

Europe's airports became strange places, with check-in desks devoid of people and departure boards declaring every destination cancelled.

In refugee-like zones, travellers waited out the hours and days, exhausted, angry and sometimes impoverished, their credit cards maxxed out.

Among the distraught at Paris' Charles de Gaulle airport yesterday were a young couple from Marseille, Gaelle Pommier and Rene Gerhardt, whose flight to Mauritius, where they were to be married, was scrapped.

"Look, here's my wedding dress - it's in this bag," said Gaelle.

In the past decade, the cost of jet travel to popular destinations has fallen in some cases by two-thirds, with price-busters such as EasyJet and Ryanair leading the charge.

That has enabled British families to have secondary homes in rural France, for Swedish executives to do a business trip to Berlin in a day, for French schoolchildren to go on a class trip to Athens.

But with the skies suddenly out of bounds, many Europeans have had to renew an acquaintance with older, slower and costlier travel - and realise what distance really means.

Train services became booked solid, with some people standing for trips of up to seven hours.

Taxi drivers, too, did well: €500 ($1250) for Paris to Vienna.

Many car rental agencies were stripped bare. Anything with wheels was on the road. Some people drove 18 or 20 hours across Europe, dumping the vehicle in the south in the hope of getting a flight to America.

The rich and famous rubbed shoulders with the poor and anonymous. Whitney Houston ditched diva status by taking a Nordic ferry to perform in Ireland. Gary Lineker, a British TV sports celebrity, queued for tickets at Paris' Gare du Nord station for a Eurostar to London.

In Gonesse, near Charles-de-Gaulle airport, people ventured out from behind their government-subsidised triple glazing to sit in their small gardens, read books, barbecue sausages and chat out of doors.

"It's strange," said Patrick Audegond, 40. "It's so quiet. It's almost as if we're cut off."