How long have those flights been circling for? And now they're still meandering and giving their pax an aerial tour of various bits of Britain, circling here there and everywhere to meet that 10pm openning.
So I'm assuming they all loaded FAR more contingency/diversion fuel than usual, which suggests to me, given the meeting Willie has had this evening, that he rather planned this whole operation, knowing the bad
PR the government would get if all these flights were diverted and more pax stranded, when the rest of Europe is open.
Very clever tactics for now, but I will reserve judgement on whether this is the right decision, it does seem aviation safety decisions are being made for political reasons, which puts us on a very very slippery slope we really don't want to be near. However, I do tend to trust Willie Walsh is an intelligent enough man to know a fleet of ash-damaged aircraft would cost far more than waiting till the winds change on fri/sat so I assume he has good reason to believe the air is OK.