lomapaseo
Your last post really 'hit the nail on the head' with respect to the difficulty operators faced during the inital few days of the ash cloud reaching the UK and Europe. Given that the industry had no quantitive measure as to safe levels of ash, as we now seem to have established, albeit in extremis- all our previous instructions and procedures instructed us to avoid ash- period. Is it a surprise to anyone that we stopped flying in the face of this ash cloud?- such as it was.
What operator would have/could have ignored VAAC advisories, Ops Manuals and OEM instructions, even if NATS would have issued clearances? None is my guess. And if and when Katla goes, if the UK is affected, I predict we'll have a similar difficulty in deciding if its 'safe' to operate. Unless the plume is very well definded, which it wasn't last time, quite how we'll flight plan around ash in a dymanic atmosphere is going to be another major issue.