Reopening the Skies: Did British Airways Win a Game of Chicken?
England – Turn to any British news channel for most of Tuesday, and the reports were all the same: hopes were fading for a plan to gradually open U.K. airspace as the volcano under Iceland’s Eyjafjalla Glacier belched a second enormous cloud of ash and dust toward the British Isles. Then, suddenly, the government announced that it would reopen all U.K. airports at 10 p.m. GMT. What, many in Britain asked, just happened? The fact that mere minutes after 10 p.m. there were already flights touching down at Heathrow Airport should have been a clue. On Tuesday morning, British Airways CEO Willie Walsh, reportedly infuriated that the government had given German carrier Lufthansa the right to fly over U.K. airspace as long as the planes cleared 20,000 feet — their vapor trails tauntingly visible to those on the ground — quietly ordered more than two dozen long-haul flights to head for London. Airplane enthusiasts remarked online early Tuesday evening at the mounting number of British Airways
