JAKARTA: At least seven international flights from Indonesia’s resort island Bali have been cancelled, an airport official said Friday (Mar 21), after a volcano in the archipelago nation’s east erupted, shooting dark ash 8km into the sky.
Mount Lewotobi Laki-Laki, a 1,703m twin-peaked volcano on the tourist island of Flores, erupted for 11 minutes and nine seconds late Thursday, authorities said, raising the volcano’s alert status to the highest level.
As of 9.45am local time Friday, “seven international flights had been cancelled, six of them are Jetstar flights bound to Australia and one Air Asia flight to Kuala Lumpur”, Bali’s Ngurah Rai International Airport spokesman, Andadina Dyah, said in a statement.
Several other flights – both domestic and international, including to Thailand, Singapore and Australia – have been delayed, it said.
Responding to CNA’s queries on Friday, Scoot, a subsidiary of Singapore Airlines, said that four flights to and from Bali have been retimed.
They are:
- Flight TR284, originally scheduled to depart Singapore for Denpasar at 11.15am on Friday, has been retimed to depart at 4pm on the same day
- Flight TR285, originally scheduled to depart Denpasar for Singapore at 2.55pm on Friday, has been retimed to depart at 7.30pm on the same day
- Flight TR258, originally scheduled to depart Singapore for Lombok at 7.35am on Friday, has been retimed to depart at 5am on Saturday
- Flight TR259, originally scheduled to depart Lombok for Singapore at 11.10am on Friday, has been retimed to depart at 8.40am on Saturday
The airline said that it has contacted affected customers to inform them of the changes to their flights.
“Scoot apologises for the inconvenience caused. The safety of our customers and crew is our top priority. We will continue to monitor the situation and will adjust our flight schedule as necessary,” it said.
Source: CNA
