Volcanic Ash 2 and aftermath.

Who can you really believe?
Maybe we will find out but it could go two ways:
1/ This was one mother of an overreaction. but hang on a moment. Maybe it is better to err on the side of safety and life preservation? Quite so .....to a point and the point is were the decision makers qualidied in knowledge and consultation to make that decision? Because if they were not they were (and still will be) causing huge damage to people, companies and the economy. Did the authorities talk first with airlines, plane manufactures, scientists and all relevant parties before taking such drastic and catyclismic action. If they did then fine. If they did not they are hugely culpable for the massive damage done.
2/ If it was not overriaction how could the airlines not support the action taken? Did they put economic survival ahead of safety? Were they prepared to take riskis with passenger lives? Bearing in mind they would have killed people including staff, lost their equipment and irreplaceablly damaged their reputation I think not.

I am not particularly interested in a witch hunt but I am incredibly interested in making sure decisions like this are made better in future. Maybe that will be the only good coming out of all this.

The Aftermath

So, if the air lanes stay open what happens now?
Sadly it will be quite a time before the schedules get back to normal and people are where they should be. The airlines will continue to be in pain for even longer as some future flights will come back half empty as the expected holidaymakers were prevented from going out in the first place. Also I would not be surprised if some firms might continue flying less if they discover those contingency video conference calls worked rather well. Some airlines and hotels may also suffer (or otherwise) when travellers evaluate how they performed through this crisis i.e. did they help stranded passengers and did they meet their financial and moral commitments in this respect.
Time will tell.