[AnAmericanMother]

Classic case of inadequate information and a BIG downside risk.

Junk in the engines will drop a plane like a rock, and it doesn't take much.

The airlines were weighing inconvenience against the possibility of debris ingestion and LOTS of deaths.

Frankly, I'll take sleeping on a chair in Heathrow any day of the week over plunging to my death from 30,000 feet.

[Cheburashka]

Frankly, I'll take sleeping on a chair in Heathrow any day of the week over plunging to my death from 30,000 feet.

---

Oh, come on. where's your spirit of adventure? You might enjoy plunging to your death from 30,000 feet if you just tried it.

Yeah, I'm kidding.

[mockingbyrd]

Seriously. So they made a mistake. A mistake on the side of protecting thousands of lives. So yeah, maybe they misunderestimated the risk, and thousands of people were inconvienenced, but at least they’re alive now to whine about it.

Could you imagine the uproar if just ONE flight had crashed due to debris?

[saganite]

That’s just a tad overwrought. The aircraft that have actually suffered engine damage from a volcanic ash cloud flew through a cloud, not a dispersed remnant.

[null and void]

Frankly, I'll take sleeping on a chair in Heathrow any day of the week over plunging to my death from 30,000 feet.

No spirit of adventure...

[rednesss]

"Frankly, I'll take sleeping on a chair in Heathrow any day of the week over plunging to my death from 30,000 feet."

You don't necessarily plunge out of the sky, Air Transat Flight 236 stayed aloft for 19 minutes with no engine power at all and was able to safely divert and land in the Azores instead of ditching in the middle of the Atlantic.