Indonesia extends closure of 3 airports till today
Print Edition
INDONESIA extended to today the closure of three airports, including on the holiday hotspot of Bali, due to drifting ash from a volcano, spelling more flight cancellations and travel chaos for thousands of holidaymakers.
Authorities closed the airport on Bali, the international airport on popular Lombok island, and three others serving domestic routes late Thursday as Mount Raung on Java spewed clouds of ash into the sky.
The closure of Bali airport came during peak season, when tourists flock to the island to enjoy its palm-fringed beaches, and crowds of anxious visitors packed the terminal buildings as they waited for more information about their flights.
The government initially said all airports would not be operational until late yesterday. But later in the day, the transport ministry said that Bali and two small airports in East Java would remain closed until at least this morning.
“All three of them will be closed until 10:00am tomorrow,” ministry spokesman J. A. Barata said yesterday.
“The air is still not clear.”
Lombok’s international airport, and a smaller one on the island, were re-opened earlier yesterday.
Tourists described chaotic scenes at Bali’s Ngurah Rai airport. Katie Nagar, an American expatriate, described arriving at the domestic terminal to discover her flight to Jakarta on Indonesian flag carrier Garuda had been cancelled and rescheduled to tomorrow.
“There’s basically just hundreds of people camped out on the grassy lawns in front of the airport. There’s lines of hundreds of people waiting to talk to customer service,” she said.
Many were also waiting in the international terminal, with some trying to seek information from airport officials.
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