Not a bad discussion these last (few posts ....if they survive
)
The answer probably lies in the details.
On the surface it appears that the historical single-flight safety impact from volcanic ash (Eric Moody etal.) was the failure to look for a clear route around the (unknown to the pilot) volcanic ash cloud. The same might be said for the last weeks only the cloud patterns were known but no chance was ever given to search out a clear path.
Now that the decision to manage flights around various densities of volcanic ash has been shared, it has been shown that one can minimize the risk down to something like avoiding bird ingestions that knock you out of the sky.
The human does learn to adapt even though we may not fully understand.
I don't like the rhetoric that heaps distrust on the CEO,s They only take advice of the avaition safety experts (believe it or not).
I suppose we could always fill a room with aviation safety experts and listen to the discussions, but I suspect that this has already happened and we are just second guessing what they discussed
OTOH have we noticed many qualified aviation safety experts in the press that say the present course of action is unsafe?
To me the opinions of individuals is only that, unless you represent a larger contingent that has reviewed the issue and history.