Personally I would take a wait and see attitude

Volcanic ash falls on Reykjavik, citizens fail to notice | IceNews - Daily News

The higher the cloud the further it seems to travel.

I don't know if it will affect UK/Ireland, based on this -

Metcheck.com - Atlantic Jet Stream Forecast - [Updated on 15 May 2010 at 10:00] - Weather Feeds - Live Data - Long Range Weather Forecasts

I have followed this thread from the first post on the first day, i have checked it every few hours because it effects my job, and also my holiday.
I have been planning shipments and jobs around the cloud checking the long term weather forecast, on all the twitter pages i can find,

so far this morning i have found 3 maps all showing different locations,

first one radar virtuel's overlay, second one the icelandic map which shows a small concentration, and the mapped.at one, all three maps claim to be upto date and all show different conficting information,

I have no technical knowledge whatsoever of aircraft engines, but i am fond of them the most when they are spinning round very fast and im sitting above one.

I do find it hard to believe though that in the last fifty years or so of jet engines somewhere on earth, there hasnt been a plane flying through a thick volcanic ash cloud at somepoint. most of java, is volcanic, and alaska,


currently according to radar virtuel there are 575 aircraft up and about, and i think yesterday there were 29,000 flights within the eurocontrol area.
My feelings are at first everyone panicked, it was all over the media, it was in the papers, all over the web, and i am inclined to think that we over reacted a little.

i reckon when the heat comes out of the election news, this will become front page news again and whip us all up into a frenzy,
the latest news on the caa website is 11 may, the lastest news on nats is last nigjht and there are no restrictions,


its almost like the recession, we seem to be almost taling ourselves into airspace bans,

BA cancels flights
 

BBC News reporting BA cancelling 1 flight to Edinburgh and 2 to Aberdeen. No link to story as yet.

Looking at Peter's forecast jets I reckon SSK is right. This could emasculate the BA strike somewhat:)

CLICKY-LINK

BBC Breaking News - possible UK ash closures for 2 days from tomorrow.

Oh this is fun ... NOT

Original flight last month cnx due to ash, re-booked flight for next week cnx due to strike, and now the re-re-booked flight may be cnx due to ash? :ugh:

Someone doesn't want me to reach the USA. :{

5-day ash forecast from Met Office
 

There is now a five day forecast, with a caveat that it is not for operational use and heavily flagged that it assumes no change to volcanic output during the five day period, (though it seems to be OK for newspaper headlines):
Met Office: Five Day Volcanic Ash Charts

MPN11,

Try Walking Across.

It appears that Ryanair will now have to pay considerably more than just the ticket price to compensate stranded passengers:

BBC News - Italy fines Ryanair over volcano ash 'failings'

Funny that, I thought MOL would be happy at the free publicity. I'm not fan of his, but I don't think the regulations envisage such a situation. An ash risk supplements would be justifiable, in my opinion.

Irish Aviation Authority website:

2030 hours local - Saturday 15th May 2010: Due to the prevailing weather conditions, and sustained low-level volcanic activity over the past number of days, the volcanic ash cloud is drifting towards Ireland from the North Atlantic. The cloud is likely to be over the west coast early tomorrow morning, and will cover the rest of the country later in the day.

Irish Aviation Authority - 2030 hours local - Saturday 15th May 2010: Donegal, Sligo and Ireland West (Knock) open until 0700 hours local, Sunday 16th May 2010. All other airports open until at least 1300 hours local.

NATS:
Update on Saturday 15 May, 2345
A high density volcanic ash cloud is rapidly encroaching on Northern Ireland. As a result, a no-fly zone has been imposed by the CAA in airspace over parts of Northern Ireland, however Belfast International and Dublin airports will remain open, from 0100 (local) to 0700 on Sunday 16 May.

Sky News are reporting that a BA memo says that BA have found no evidence at all of any damage due to the volcanic ash.

Is BA trying to make a political point? Could it be that the caution shown by the authorities has been justified?

CO16 from Newark - Glasgow and 36 to Edinburgh cancelled tonight, by the looks of it just before scheduled departure.
Similarly, US468 to Glasgow, the first of the season cancelled

Here we go again, another few days of massive disruption and cost to all.
This eruption could go on for a long time and with the Azores high soon to establish itself then the wind direction could be unfavorable for long periods.
I am aware that the ash levels permitted has been raised, but has any real research been done recently? IF it has then is it not possible for monitoring a/c be assigned to each airport, with the task to fly 20nm circles around the said airport. IF they were equiped with sensors then real ash levels could be detected.
At the moment the Met Office is providing forecasts based on computor models, just as they do for "proper weather". If these monitor a/c detected say a safe corridor to the SE of a particular a/p then at least we would not need these total shutdowns.

at the moment AND for the foresseable future!

Do you have any evidence at all that the tuned-up models currently in use are actually giving incorrect track and coverage data for the VA?

Or, alternatively, any evidence that 'safe corridors' actually could / have exist(ed) for useable periods of time, in conflict with data from the models.

(...thought not!)

We were 'Black' last Saturday night, but no sign of any ash on my balcony the next morning. However, every summer we regularly wake up to find everything covered in a thin film of rust-coloured dust- just like brown talcum powder. This is fine dust lifted from the Sahara, so presumably is sand/silica based, and therefore chemically not too far removed from volcanic ash. (I stand to be corrected). How is it that aircraft fly quite happily through this much heavier, and visible, dust concentration without any fuss?