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Ash particles pose a real threat to aviation safety in the Finnish air space.

Over Thursday and Friday, the Air Force has examined the F-18 Hornet fighters of the Lapland Wing that flew practice flights over northern Finland on Thursday morning. The air space was still open to the public then.

The planes were examined after they landed, and volcanic ash dust, resembling potato flour, was detected in the engine intakes. An engine of one of the Hornets was further examined with a fiber optic camera. It was concluded from the images, that significant engine damage is caused by even a short flight through ash.

The pictures show that the accumulated ash has melted inside the combustion chamber, where the temperature is around 1000 degrees centigrade (1800 F). The molten ash blocks the cooling ducts, which causes overheating of engine parts, and the materials are weakened. This causes a risk for fractures in the rotating parts of the engine, and in the worst case the parts will break apart and the engine will be completely destroyed.

The exposed Hornets will be thoroughly inspected. It will be necessary to dismantle at least some of the engines, after which they will be sent to Patria engine repairs for further examination. Any engines with noticeable ash exposure will be taken apart to determine the full extent of the damage. The cooling air ducts will also be checked for ash blockages at that time.

Finnish defense forces had two of their F18s in the air during the initial ash cloud arrival. They didn't stay up for more then a few minutes however, as they were wrapping up the training run.
These are the pictures with commentary of one of the disassembled engines after this (commentary in finnish):

http://www.ilmavoimat.fi/index.php?id=1156

Summary on the front page states: "According to our investigation, volcanic dust did not cause significant damage to the engine of the aircraft. However we did discover what seems to be volcanic ash residue on internal engine components".

This is from the craft that just flew through the cloud at the very start, when first traces of ash arrived here. As they appear to also state that they will ground all but operative readiness flights, and only fly other flights on the piston engine craft during ash cloud persisting over the country, it appears that they believe the damage will be quite significant if they will have to fly during ash cloud conditions for extended periods of time.

Finland's air force flew into the ash cloud, and released some photos of the damage. It ain't pretty.

My vote's on cash grab.

Not directly answering your question, but:
PICTURES: Finnish F-18 engine check reveals effects of volcanic dust
Finnish fighter jets damaged by volcanic cloud
Original article of Finnish Air Force (in Finnish)

The Finnish Air Force have a couple of pictures and an analysis of a couple of F18 jet engines exposed to the volcanic ash on the Internet.

The jets were on a routine training flight in northern Finland while the airspace was still open. This stuff does nasty stuff to the engines even with short exposures, it seems.

Original (in Finnish)
Translation (shitty, but understandable)/a)

That's an interesting coincidence, because the Finnish Air Force has been recently criticized on its use of swastikas, which of course has nothing to do with the Nazis.

Well, regular peace time bases cease to exist pretty soon after hostilities start. Here are few links to pictures of Finnish Air Force Hornets operating from road bases:

http://www.ilmavoimat.fi/index.php?id=292
http://www.ilmavoimat.fi/index.php?id=292

This one shows a village on backround:
http://www.ilmavoimat.fifilebank/1872-maahn_14_jpg .jpg

Well, regular peace time bases cease to exist pretty soon after hostilities start. Here are few links to pictures of Finnish Air Force Hornets operating from road bases:

http://www.ilmavoimat.fi/index.php?id=292
http://www.ilmavoimat.fi/index.php?id=292

This one shows a village on backround:
http://www.ilmavoimat.fifilebank/1872-maahn_14_jpg .jpg

Do they ban only Nazi related items, or anything with a swastika on it? As you may know, the swastika was an ancient symbol with positive connotations before the 3rd reich.

Yeah, for example, before the wars the swastika was the symbol of Finnish Air Force. I found it strange that some American online flight sim maker (can't remember which) wanted to use the FAF's modern symbol (just circles) on historical planes...