The planes are thundering overhead again; last night thousands of exhausted passengers will at last have slept in their own beds. The dust is settling and the airlines, even Ryanair, have accepted that they are legally obliged to meet the expenses of everyone inconvenienced by the plumes of volcanic ash. Less fortunate are the hundreds more still trapped in distant locations and grim circumstances who flew with airlines that are not based in Europe. Now the haggling will begin, not between weary passengers and the airlines whose balance sheets are already stretched between economic recession and soaring fuel prices, but between the airlines and their governments. As usual, questions of risk and compensation make gritty bedfellows.

Real travellers scoff that travel has become so effortless, many of those caught up in the past week's events will never before have experienced such a rude upset to their plans. They may even come to realise that the journey home was more exciting than being there. Just as well, because the ones who got back under their own steam are the ones who will find it hardest to get any compensation. Magnified by the Easter break, the astonishing number of travellers and the variety of destinations, from girl guides in Marrakech to businessmen in Mumbai, became a breathtaking illustration of how commonplace air travel has become to a prosperous society. In these circumstances, it seems perverse to expect European governments to bail out the airlines with what ultimately is taxpayers' money. After all, travel insurance is intended to compensate against just such an unexpected event, and already some firms have accepted that they will make payouts. Others, however, say travellers should have studied the small print: volcanos are not on the list of catastrophes that they cover.

All European airlines, meanwhile, are (reluctantly) bound by EU regulation 261 which obliges them to compensate passengers for expenses they incur when they are delayed even in "extraordinary circumstances". Anecdotally, the regulation has been a disincentive to overbooking and sharpened up the way airlines care for their passengers. But they insist it was not intended to cover the complete and prolonged shutdown of European airspace. Now, encouraged by hints from the Department for Transport and rumours of support from the Conservatives' Theresa Villiers, they have begun a campaign to get the regulation amended so that the EU solidarity fund, intended to support member states in the event of major natural disaster or terrorist attack, would bail them out. Europe should treat the claim with caution.