afterthoughts
Now that it looks like we all are a little bit more sure of our jobs, some considerations.
Was the closure a conservative decision?: I think it was.
Was it too conservative?
I think is wasn't; we simply did not no enough about this ash-thing which notably never affected Europe this way since the jet era.
Do we need to improve the way we deal with it in the future and make it more dynamic as per the Eurocontrol press release?
Absolutely, even the beancounters may now be convinced of spending money on that.
However:
CEO's flying "test" flights (without measuring equipment, i.e. if they would have damaged the engines we would not know what concentration and type of ash did that, where and when) may have a case at this time, but consider this:
Suppose the METOffice, NATS, or Eurocontrol would have come up with a plan to create a grid of LIDARs in Europe, have a number of specialized aircraft at standby, and of course hire the people to gather, analyse and conclude from the data they produce. Suppose they would have suggested to pay for this trough an extra "volcanic observation charge". Would the airlines have agreed to this two weeks ago?
Hopefully, they will now, so that we can indeed fly around actual ash in stead of our best possible prediction.
Lets get back to what everyone (ANSPs, METOffice and Eurocontrol included) wants, flying tubes of aluminium through a superheated vapor!
00nix