Jetstar has resumed flights to Bali, after the second eruption of the Mt Agung volcano within a week forced it to cancel flights to the island on Saturday night.
The airline says its senior pilots have assessed the volcanic ash conditions at the popular tourist destination on Sunday morning, finding them improved and safe to fly in.
It will run 18 flights between Bali and Australia or Singapore on Sunday, while three flights from Townsville, Singapore and Perth remain cancelled.
Meanwhile, Bali authorities have assured the island is still safe for travellers.
“Tourism in Bali is still safe, except in the danger (zone) around Mount Agung,” Indonesia’s Disaster Mitigation Agency said in a statement, referring to an area that extends to a radius of up to 7.5 km from the summit.
“There has not been an increase in seismic and volcanic activity after the (Tuesday) eruption and until this afternoon,” said the statement, noting that it had not changed its emergency status for Agung from level 3.
The agency also called for calm among the local community, from which around 25,000 people have been evacuated from the slopes of Agung to hundreds of refuge shelters.
Several international flights, including from several cities in Australia and to the Netherlands and Malaysia, were canceled and re-routed on Saturday night as a result of the eruption, the official website of Bali’s Ngurah Rai International Airport said.
These included flights operated by KLM, Jetstar, Qantas, AirAsia, and Virgin.
A girl wears mask as the Mount Agung volcano erupting in the background in Karangasem, Bali island, Indonesia, Sunday, November 26, 2017. Source: AAP
Overnight Jetstar diverted three flights heading to Bali and also cancelled six flights that were due to depart from the island.
"Following an eruption of the Mount Agung volcano in Bali, Indonesia, it is not currently safe to operate flights around Denpasar Airport," the airline said in an earlier statement.
The National Disaster Mitigation Agency said the ash column from Mount Agung rose 1500m following an eruption at about 5:30pm on Saturday.
Spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho said the volcano's alert status remains at the second-highest level. There hasn't been an increase in seismic activity, he said.
The eruptions on Saturday and Tuesday were relatively minor.
An exclusion zone around the volcano extends 7.5km from the crater in places
About 25,000 people have been unable to return to their homes since September when Agung showed signs of activity for the first time in more than half a century.
Its last major eruption in 1963 killed about 1100 people.
