At 10pm last night, Airlines were given the go-ahead to resume flights from the UK, but now the post mortem begins, with airlines (led by BA) questioning whether there was a need for a blanket ban.
IATA have estimated that airlines have lost in the region of 1.7 billion dollars, and Willie Walsh, BA’s chief executive has stated that he didn’t think it was neccessary to close all airspace last Thursday.
UK airspace is nearly all re-open, with just a few no go areas, where ash levels have been deemed to be more concentrated.
The situation is being regularly monitored, and more tests are being carried out.
Many tour operators and travel companies are calling for compensation,to cover the enormous amount of lost revenue.
The CAA said in defense of the ban, that customers safety was their “overriding priority”, and that many of the worlds aviation specialists had been summoned together to try and solve the problem.
Much new data has been collected from test flights run over the last few days, and manufacturers have analysed aircraft reactions to th ash in more detail.
The procedures that were in place, stated that volcanic ash should be avoided at all times, and because of the magnitude of the ash plume there was no way of flying around it as there was simply not enough air space. Weather conditions were static, so the situation had to be fully investigated before any decision could be made. Should the same thing happen in the future, there will be more understanding of aircraft tolerance to volcanic ash, which was the main factor of imposing the ban in the first place.