UPDATE
 

Apparently it has been reported just now on BBC News 24 that LHR will receive BA flights from 2100z tonight. Anyone?

It took two Cobra meetings to achieve this. Now they will start looking into responsabilities...

Well done for BA, at last some good publicity :-)

Breaking News on Sky News.

CAA alllows all British Airports to phased reopen from 10pm tonight.

I think its a case of showing aircraft flying round uk airspace then diverting to most other european Countries surrounding the UK to show the public what BA and others would like to do. No argument about continued flying in ash but one off positioning flights in cavok?> make no mistake the Government can't move the thousands of passengers stuck throughout the world....

BBC News:
BREAKING NEWS:The Civil Aviation Authority [not heard much of them during this] will phase out UK airspace restrictions from 2200 BST

yes indeed, it's a miracle. Five minutes ago it was dangerous and now its safe. This decision should have been made last week. A complete farce:confused:

I still don't believe it was NATS call; look further up the food chain.

theres another ash cloud heading our way....

gordon Nropwn "saftey is paramount"

all airports colsed till tomorrow....

and then....

a cobra meeting with the airline bosses....


Its all fine, you can all go flying. we still know no more about ash densities or AC engine tolerances, but its political suicide now so you can all go flying.

Its either safe or not.

If they were saying it was unsafe today, do we really want to go flying tomorrow just because Gordon Brown is down in the polls and WW is loosing money.

I really don't a few things about where we stand now.

Firstly, the decision to impose zero flow rates was not NATS' alone. It'd be foolish to use the ANSP as a scapegoat.

Secondly, the ash situation is no better in many ways than it was last Friday, yet now the Government, facing an election and some pretty strong pressure from BA et al, decide it's fine to fly now, but not then.

Not rocket science really.

Cynics delight
 

This will of course be most welcome news for all those experts who say that the airspace should never have been shut. Standby for the pious glee of those who never will be in a position to have to make such decisions but nevertheless try to talk as if they knew the answer all along.

Nice disclaimer from the CAA that airlines will need to conduct their own assessments whether to fly.
And about time they did step up to the plate - NATS are merely a service provider - The CAA are the regulatory body and should've been prominent from the beginning

louby

Risk assessment with this is exceedingly difficult because of the lack of concrete information. However, using some arbitrary numbers and a bit of probability theory suggests that the closure isn't the overreaction some believe it to be.

If one assumes that the probability of a serious incident from an ash encounter under these conditions is one in a million; i.e. the probability of an individual flight making it to its destination is 999,999/1,000,000, then you can compute the likelihood of an incident over a given number of flights. You actually compute the odds of having no accident then subtract, but it yields the correct result.

Using this method, while admittedly arbitrary, does yield some interesting results. Over the span of only 25,000 flights, the chances of an incident are around 2.5%. For 50,000, it's 4.9%. Whatever number you use, it is clear that the risk is not negligible. Here, I've assumed that a given flight is 99.9999% likely to fly without having an incident. The numbers get a lot grimmer using lesser figures.

I think what this exercise does do is to demonstrate the difference in perspective between those in government, who have to look at the overall picture, and the individual pilots here who would launch under these conditions. Individually, the risk is seemingly small. However, cumulatively, a somewhat different picture emerges. This result is not entirely dissimilar to the "tragedy of the commons" problem in economics.

Does anyone else think its a bit too much of a coincidence that the airspace opens just as 14 BA longhual AC arrive in european airspace with not a lot of holding fuel, and with WW in a meeting with Cobra?

In the absence of meteorological changes to the weather forecast altering the decision to keep UK airspace shut again tonight, why wouldn't people come to the conclusion that this has been a ridiculous overreaction now they've changed their minds?

How easy it is for you all to shout about over-cautiousness when, thanks to the regulations, there hasn't been a single incident. Well apart from D-CALM running away from some pretty bad stuff during one of it's flights...but that seems to get handily ignored here.

Perhaps those cocksure ladies and gentlemen amongst you, the armchair pilots and decision makers, would be rather more reluctant to scream for heads to roll if, heaven forfend, something came down in an unrestricted, ash-filled airspace, as a result of commercial pressure exerted on non-commercial organisations more interested in safety then profit.

To be honest, it's a little sickening how so many can claim to know so much about such a complex and oft-changing situation. We're clearly blessed with unparalleled levels of aviation expertise. Lucky us.

Incompetence At The Highest Level
 

Adonis (government) and Hutton (CAA/government). live on Sky and BBC. Squirming Liars, attempting to protect their faulty decisions, with the absolute safety mantra.

They and their cohorts deserve to pay a one-way visit to the volcano!

What precisely was the CAA's motive for this supposed over-cautiousness?

Easyjet to Luton
 

This was a test flight conducted by easyjet.

Finally common sense prevails and a huge amount of spin from Adonis there. Also interesting that the 6pm VAAS forecast from the met office hasn't materialised.

Do they need a motive?

Rather than wait for the weather to shift the volcanic ash, the UK government has simply shifted the goalposts regarding the UK policy on volcanic ash operations.