An Englishman's Castle

Volcanic ash cloud: British Airways fly in the face of ban - Telegraph

Willie Walsh, the airline’s chief executive, joined four crew in a three-hour test flight from London, over the Atlantic, to Cardiff.

Wales is obviously further away from London than I realised.
As is increasingly obvious this flight ban is an overreaction based on computer models produced by the Met Office.
"Our first priority is the safety of passengers" is the excuse, and it is a meaningless soundbite. If you only worry about falling out the sky you would never fly. Our priority is to balance up the risks and rewards of all the options.
Airfreighting in mange-tout from Kenya gives us flaccid green stuff to chew (that is the so-called benefit), the cost in safety is that at sometime, in the millions of miles the freighting will chalk up, a plane load of petit pois will plough back into the ground, and it is a risk we think worth taking.
What the rewards are meant to be for going to Tenerife are beyond me so any risk is unjustifiable....