@bubbles #1920:
A BA source is now saying that they are not engaged in a act of defience and the 26 flights will not be landing in the UK tonight.
Thanks bubbles re mine at #1919 but BA certainly did orchestrate this to exert pressure and its denial is meaningless. LHR was showing all the US, Canada and Mexico City flights on its arrivals board almost from the get-go, not so much an information exercise for the benefit of a general audience as BA's clear signalling of intention to politicos and the rest.
It does seem we're now into 'posture politics' whereby BA can claim it did nothing other than "assist the decision making process" whilst the, er, decision makers can say something along the lines of, well, hey, as soon as we heard the volcano was *really* calming down, then that's why we lifted the restrictions.
Unfortunately, neither of the above addresses the fundamental issue here.