JAKARTA: An eruption of Indonesia's Mount Anak Krakatau caused eight airports to suspend flight operations on Sunday (Sep 6), affecting hundreds of flights at Jakarta's main airport, after some school activities and fishing were halted.Soekarno-Hatta International Airport suspended flight operations until midnight on Monday (1am, Singapore time) due to volcanic ash, the airport posted on Instagram, stranding hundreds of passengers at the facility.The suspension, extended several times, has affected 964 flights, the transportation ministry said. Singapore Airlines (SIA), Malaysia Airlines, AirAsia and Lion Air Group said they had cancelled flights to and from Jakarta for the rest of the day.Total affected flights across the eight airports reached more than 1,500 flights with 170,000 passengers, the ministry said.
SIA and Scoot have also cancelled flights between Singapore and Jakarta scheduled for Monday, with nine SIA flights and four Scoot flights affected.Anak Krakatau, which is roughly halfway between Java and Sumatra in Indonesia's vast island chain, has been erupting since late on Friday, with volcanic ash detected at the airport early on Sunday, the transport ministry said.
PASSENGERS STUCK AT SOEKARNO-HATTA INTERNATIONALAsh reached as high as 6,000m on the Java side of the volcano and 15,000m on the Sumatra side and in some parts of Banten province in Java, the meteorological agency BMKG posted on its website.Ersy Laksita Rini, 55, was upset when she arrived at Soekarno-Hatta International and learned that her 8am flight to Surabaya had been cancelled. She said the airline had not informed her ahead of time."If the eruption happened last night and there were predictions of flight cancellations, we should have been notified from the start," she told Reuters. "That way, passengers wouldn't have needed to come here so early and could have looked for alternatives instead."French national Eloan Tasset, 21, got a text from Batik Air that his flight to his holiday destination of Manado in North Sulawesi had been delayed, but he said it was unclear how long the delay would be."If they tell me my flight is cancelled, I think I'm going to try to find a hotel in Jakarta," he said.The airport operator said it was providing food and light refreshments for affected passengers and buses to hotels, in coordination with the airlines.The disaster mitigation agency BNPB said it would conduct a weather modification operation, which could include cloud-seeding, on Sunday to promote rain."If it rains heavily enough, the volcanic ash that has been disrupting our daily lives since yesterday and continuing today will be washed away quickly," BNPB chief Suharyanto told a press conference.The transport ministry named three other airports across Java - Kertajati, Ahmad Yani and Juanda - as alternatives, "should airlines or operators be able to divert their flights", said Minister Dudy Purwagandhi.
