I have no clue why they wanted their own planes grounded temporarily, but if you were top management and saw the need to do so, you would be aware of propagation delay and non-compliance in any organisation (a pilot might decide to ignore such an instruction planning to pretend they didn't get it in time, for whatever reason, like a sweetheart in a different place waiting for them). Asking the government and thus the airports and control towers to ground them acts as a second safety, whatever the concern was?

Here in Norway an airline has just introduced an "emergency surcharge" as jet fuel has apparently doubled in price over the last few days.

So after reading the headline I was thinking is this some weird play to avoid losses while not having to pay customers for lost flights.

Some of these airline companies are shifty after all.

Obvious not really the case here, or hopefully anywhere.