Gasax
Well anyone who does real risk assessment would quickly work out that several hundred body bags is actually a good return for wasting £1.7B from the airlines and almost certainly that much again from the general population.
I quite agree that in this day and age an aircraft full of people is not worth that much (although I am sure our families are worth far more). However, if they kept flying and there was a crash, they would stop flying and still incur that £1.7bn bill. Moreover following such an accident there would be the usual overly extreme knee jerk reaction that would not have resulted in the sensible state of play we have now.
I have to say I am torn with this ash issue. I was "stranded" for a few days, both as pilot and a passenger. On the one hand we have the "we don't know, but we reckon that ICAO say no so no flying", on the other we have the "Russian Roulette" approach to safety management. Both are equally inappropriate in this day and age.
Sadly it seems that other parts of the world have a sensible solution to this, whereas Europe has stuck it's head in the bureaucratic sand. Airline and Air Operators do have sway with the regulators and many initiatives that make offshore helicopter flying safer have been made by the helicopter operators. Regulators write the rules, operators have to either work around them or prove that there is a better way. It seems that airlines have missed a trick here and not got involved with the threats posed by volcanoes and more particularly the bureaucracy surrounding them.
We as passengers will end up paying for this in increased fares and increased airspace charges for pilots.