Ash cloud with a Green lining

As British air space remains almost entirely shutdown due to the Met Office reading virtual entrails again and another alleged killer cloud descending, the BBC ignores the economic havoc, strandings, and threat to national security posed by this episode in Chicken Little crisis management and opts to tell the proles its readers how a Britain without air travel wouldn't be so bad after all. No holidays abroad? No business travel? No air freight? No problem. It's all just marginal stuff. This little quote from a spokesman for the Association of British Travel Agent is rather telling:

I think you'd be talking about going to the situation like the 1950s. When planes were very much the preserve of the upper classes because it was extremely expensive to fly.

Quite right. Flying is the preserve of Inner Party members and don't you forget it. What do you think the Telescreens are for? Besides that, I mean.