Quote:
Originally Posted by wodin
Harumph!
We, here in the beautiful Sandwich Islands live with it all the time, especially with interisland flights. Planes coming and going to the Big Island, where the active volcano is, have the highest cycle (one takeoff and one landing) rate of any in the world, and are continually flying through vog (volcanic fog composed of gases and ash from Kiluea).
It results in a higher maintenance schedule for the aircraft, but little in the way of safety issues. Some of the older plane’s windshields look like they’ve been sand blasted, and the paint work is shiny only on new planes.
I don’t often have the opportunity to call the Brits wimps, but this is one!  
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No disrespect intended, but Kilauea puts out almost no ash compared to other types of volcanoes that put out vast quantities during an eruption. You have no idea what ash is until you've been through one of those. With Kilauea, you get a nice, gentle upwelling of lava that just nicely flows down to the sea at a relatively slow pace. The vog is primarily composed of gasses with a very small quantity of ash, hardly even enough to mention. The summit occasionally burps out an tiny ash cloud for a few seconds that dissipates quickly. An eruption like the Icelandic volcano is pumping out tons of ash every second. It's a completely different kind of eruption, and the Europeans are very correct to be worried about the effects of this ash on aircraft in flight - it will quickly damage or destroy jet engines (like, within mere minutes of the exposure to high ash concentrations).