Oh come on guys. Actually this is very simple.
Did he refuse to fly in an area with ash concentration below what the manufacturers now say is safe (Is it 2000 micrograms/m^3?) and where everybody else was flying?
if yes, well then I think he was wrongly overcautious and he could have known he'd get in trouble. I don't feel sorry in that case.
Did he refuse to fly in an area where the concentration was predicted to be OVER the new limit? In that case I can understand his point of view and I do feel sorry for him.
And please let's stop comparing the actual situation over Europe with what happened to those BA and KLM flights that lost all 4 engines after flying through a DENSE THICK ASH CLOUD close to a volcano. Until now there has not been a single ash CLOUD over Europe.
Perhaps merely ash concentrations so low that they remain invisible to the naked eye. I still haven't heard about a single MEASUREMENT which did confirm any significant ash concentration over Europe!
Did you?