Australian airlines cancel Bali flights after volcano erupts

Several Australian airlines on Wednesday cancelled their flights to and from the Indonesian resort island of Bali, after a nearby volcano catapulted an ash tower miles into the sky.

Jetstar, Qantas and Virgin Australia all issued advisories announcing changes to their flight schedules after Mount Lewotobi Laki-Laki on Flores island spewed a nine-kilometre (5.6-mile) tower a day earlier.

"Virgin Australia has made some changes to its current flight schedule, due to the impacts of the volcano in Indonesia," the airline said, listing scrapped flights to Sydney and Melbourne.

Jetstar said all flights to and from Bali would be halted until noon on Thursday.

"Due to volcanic ash caused by the Mount Lewotobi eruption in Indonesia, it is currently not safe to operate flights to and from Bali," the company said in an advisory.

Qantas said "a number of flights to and from Denpasar Airport in Bali have been disrupted" due to volcanic ash from Lewotobi.

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Ahmad Syaugi Shahab, general manager of Bali's international airport, said in a statement Wednesday 12 domestic and 22 international flights were affected a day ago, without identifying the routes.

He did not provide details about affected flights on Wednesday's schedule.

"Due to this natural event impacting flight operations, airlines are offering affected passengers the options of refunds, rescheduling, or re-routing," he added.

Bali's international airport operator PT Angkasa Pura Indonesia said Wednesday it had conducted tests in its airspace and said no volcanic ash was detected, saying the airport was "operating as normal".

Australian tourists make up one of the biggest groups of tourists that visit the resort island every year.

Lewotobi erupted again from midnight Wednesday until early morning, and an large ash column could be seen pouring from its crater, an AFP journalist nearby said.

Multiple eruptions from the 1,703-metre (5,587-foot) twin-peaked volcano in recent weeks have killed nine people with 31 injured and more than 11,000 evacuated, Indonesia's disaster mitigation agency said Tuesday.

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Laki-Laki, which means "man" in Indonesian, is twinned with a calmer volcano named after the Indonesian word for "woman".

Indonesia, a vast archipelago nation, experiences frequent seismic and volcanic activity due to its position on the Pacific "Ring of Fire".

Source: AFP