As anotherthing said,
"The so called 'knee jerk reaction' you allude to is the product of careful analysis of all available data. This is updated every 6 hours, but is being worked on round the clock.
The airlines are being kept in the loop every step of the way and are taking a very active part in the process.
This period of 'knee jerk reaction' has seen SAR helicopters getting airborne in Scotland, flying low level and coming back covered in ash. Do you think it is a reasonable risk for passenger jets to get airborne with that in mind?
I like to think I'm fairly intelligent and can take a balanced view on things - I'm also not averse to taking calculated risks if I know the full picture. However the decision to allow passenger jets to fly in potentially dangerous airspace is well above my pay grade and level of responsibility as it is above, I would suggest, the pay grade or level of responsibility of any of the posters on this thread..."
Which seems a very sane comment to an outsider such as me. Some of the posts in this thread show a negativity - cynicism, suspicions of conspiracy theories, predisposition to distrust any official decisions - that seem downright irresponsible to me, and positively barking in some cases.
I am one of the great masses whose arrangements for the next few days have been comprehensively
up.
But I give credit to the people who have had to make tough decisions - and if they erred on the side of caution good for them. As a long-term lurker (ok call it voyeur) on the forum I am more than occasionally worried by an attitude problem in some quarters of the industry ...
No doubt all pilots would claim to be infallible, but that doesn't mean all non-flying employees connected with the airline industry are complete morons, which seems to be the prevailing flight-deck view.
End of rant.