I'm sure the airlines want / need to get flying or they'll go out of business.
Unusually for me I have an Easyjet flight to Nice booked for an academic conference at which I will be expected to speak on Wednesday.
There's no way, even if they allow flights from Tuesday am , Easyjet will run their normal timetable and get me to Nice on Tuesday night. They'll have to prioritise repatriating their passengers from places like Spain. Nice is a small operation for them.
Unfortunately they won't cancel the bleeding flight. Even Ryanair have cancelled all flights till Wednesday. If Easyjet did that I could confirm I can't make the conference and get some money back from the hotel (which needs 24 hrs notice for a partial refund).
I realise this is small beer compared to people trapped in airports for days, but it shows how reliant we are on cheap airlines.
I briefly tried, last Thursday, to get a ticket on a ferry or Eurostar but they were sold out.
Although mildly inconvencienced by this, it shows how such a simple natural phenomenon can reduce the European economy to it's knees.
I notice now the airline lobby are pushing hard for the restrictions to be lifted based on a small number of "test flights". I just hope there is some statistical / scientific rigour at play. Just because Willie Walsh can fly to Cardiff from Heathrow without damage to his plane, does that out-trump the evidence for closing the airspace in the first place?
I doubt it and I'm not keen on being one of the first human guinee pigs