Virgin Australia and Jetstar flights in and out of Bali have been cancelled for Sunday and into the early hours of Monday as winds worsen the impact of a volcanic ash cloud from Indonesia’s Mount Raung.
Virgin said its meteorologists had advised that the volcano continued to erupt and winds were blowing in “an unfavourable direction, and are forecast to continue doing so throughout the day”.
Passengers were advised on Friday that Virgin flights the following day had been cancelled because of the poor conditions.
Jetstar has cancelled its six scheduled flights into Bali on Sunday after also grounding its Saturday flights.
A spokeswoman for the Bureau of Meteorology said a mid-level trough over Bali was likely to weaken early next week, bringing a welcome change of wind direction.
“So we’re expecting a wind change to happen at this stage late Monday, early Tuesday,” she said.
Mount Raung, about 140km north-west of Denpasar airport on the eastern end of Java, has been erupting continuously since late June, spewing corrosive, silica-based ash.
I flew past this erupting volcano flying into Bali, now we can't fly out because of it?? pic.twitter.com/ZiOPAmw8fq
— Georgia Wyse (@georgiahwyse) August 8, 2015
