Flights are still grounded in Europe due to the Eyjafjallajokull volcano, echoing back to the 3 days of air space closure in the United States after September 11, 2001.  But unlike that event, relaunching the planes isn’t a matter of adding locks to airplane doors, or hiring thousands of unskilled workers to make you take your shoes off before getting on planes.  Instead, we just have to wait for the ash to clear, and hope that the volcano doesn’t erupt again.

The last time this volcano was active was in 1821, and it continued to have on and off again eruptions for 2 years.  Just think of that for a minute: what would a world be like where Europe was a no fly zone for a year?