Several airlines resumed flights to Bali on Thursday after canceling trips to and from the Indonesian resort island due to massive eruptions at a nearby volcano.
Eighty-three international routes were canceled on Wednesday, the general manager of Bali International Airport said in a statement after Mount Levotobi Laki Laki spewed a nine-kilometer (5.6 mile) tower of ash into the sky.
The volcano has erupted more than a dozen times in the past two weeks, killing at least nine people and forcing thousands to evacuate.
Qantas and Jetstar are resuming services to Bali, Australia’s Qantas Group said in a statement on Thursday, citing “improved” conditions.
The two delayed Qantas flights yesterday were among those scheduled to depart, Qantas said.
“We will continue to monitor changing conditions and volcanic activity,” the statement said.
AirAsia planned to resume some flights to and from Bali later today, the company said in a statement to AFP, while Virgin Australia said on its website it would resume flights to and from Denpasar from today.
Meanwhile, Singaporean airline Scoot said it had postponed flights from Singapore to Bali and Surabaya and their return flights due to the volcanic activity of Levothobi Laki Laki.
As of 3 a.m. Thursday, Bali Airport had recorded another 32 cancellations of international flights, director general Ahmad Sawgi Shahab said.
He added that volcanic ash from Mount Levotobi Laki Laki was being sent from the airport since Wednesday evening.
“We hope that the affected airline passengers will be able to resume their journeys on Thursday,” Ahmad said.
Levotobi erupted again overnight Thursday, and a thick column of ash and lava flows could be seen pouring out of its crater, according to the volcanological agency.
The airport in the tourist hotspot of Labuan Bajo near the volcano reopened on Thursday, according to the airport’s Instagram account.
Laki-Laki, which means “man” in Indonesian, is the twin of a quieter volcano named after the Indonesian word for “woman”.
Bali’s economy depends heavily on tourism, but Indonesia is one of the most disaster-prone countries on Earth, located on the Pacific Ring of Fire, where tectonic plates collide.
