Volcano Spews Fresh Ash Cloud, Forcing Bali Airport to Close

Flights to and from Bali, including several involving Singapore, were cancelled yesterday due to a new volcanic ash cloud from Mount Rinjani in Lombok, Indonesia's second-highest volcano that is active.

The ash forced the Indonesian authorities to issue an order to close the Ngurah Rai International Airport on Bali for four hours until 11:30 p.m., temporarily grounding all flights to the popular holiday island.

Three Bali-bound flights from Changi Airport -- two from Jetstar and one from Emirates -- were cancelled yesterday. Two flights from Bali to Singapore -- one from Jetstar and another from KLM -- were cancelled as well.

The other scheduled flights experienced delays of between 15 minutes and four hours.

For instance, a SilkAir flight due to arrive in Singapore from Bali at 1:05 p.m. yesterday landed at 3:07 p.m., two hours behind schedule, while a Singapore Airlines flight to Bali was due to leave Changi Airport at 8:20 a.m., but did so only at 10:00 a.m.