I am amazed at the amount of people looking for heads to roll when all those heads did was follow the rules. Nobody can say any different .. Yes you may feel that the rules were over the top and that may well be , but herd ( or CEO opinion ) in itself should never be responsible for the convenient ignoring or sidestepping/ bulldozing of those rules. Neither should a 6th form physics experiment. I am sure there was a tremendous amount of work for the engine manufacturers to do in order to change their position and explicit rules in regards to volcanic ash.
I am relieved that things seem to be settling down now as my own company has been suffered some serious economic damage in the six days and the medium term damage we are unable to quantify at this time, still though at least we can now operate again.