The aero engine manufacturers will be the big winners out of this
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Yes, Count, and what little we DO know about ash cloud events, no I should say we know a lot, and ALL the flying that took place from Monday on and yesterday and in some parts today was ONE HUGE ASH CLOUD penetration experiment...( not yet Darwin Awards quality but damn close...)
The avalanche is yet to come..
The vulcano will be quiet, the media attention will have vanished...
BUT engines that got their share of ash all over Europe either slightly before the closure or now at this time, since Monday and especially yesterday,
well those motors may start to cough pretty soon..
Loaner engine pools will be depleted very soon because of high demand and the fact that most investigating, even if no big engine damage is found, will need shop visits..
and lest anybody may think there was no cloud...sure there was and partly still is....and there is stuff in there..the kind of ugly stuff that engine manufacturers rightly say MUST NOT BE INHALED by the motors in ANY concentration...
We never know, it may yet turn out that giving it one or two more days before restarting full flight ops would have been the more cost effective solution for the operators..
let's say you have a 100 737s or 320s....lets say a third of your fleet needs some premature engine work because of yesterdays flying...lets say 60 motors at roughly 1 - 2 Mio USD per motor for DR & performance restoration...
well that's, let's make it easy that's a cool 100 Mio USD +
You dont lose a 100 Mio a day if your park 100 birds for two days...
But it will take a long time to earn enough to have those 100 MIO back on the plus side of your balance sheets..
and that is just the commercial aspect of it...
We have not talked safety yet...