Bali Flights Resume After Indonesia's Mount Agung Volcano Erupts

(Bloomberg) -- Flights to and from Indonesia’s Bali island have returned to normal, allowing the resort island to continue welcoming tourists, after a volcanic eruption.

Airlines resumed flights to and from the I Gusti Ngurah Rai Airport on Saturday, Polana Pramesti, director general of civil aviation, said in a text message on Sunday. Several flights were canceled after the Mount Agung volcano erupted late on Friday.

The canceled flights originated from and were bound for Australia, according to Haruman Sulaksono, general manager of the airport. The airport management conducted a test to determine whether the eruption would disrupt airport operations, Sulaksono said by phone.

“The test result showed it would not, but we still coordinated with the airline operators’ committee. Some airlines, domestic and foreign, continued to fly on Friday, while others decided to cancel or postpone, and we respected their decisions,” he said.

Mount Agung erupted late Friday and the situation in Bali has now returned to normal, Sutopo Purwo Nugroho, a spokesman for Indonesia’s Disaster Mitigation Agency, said in a text message. No areas were evacuated.

Bali’s economy heavily relies on tourism. It suffered nearly $1 billion in losses when Mount Agung erupted in late 2017 and foreign tourist arrivals dropped 30% year-on-year in December, according to data from Indonesia’s statistics bureau.

To contact the reporter on this story: Tassia Sipahutar in Jakarta at ssipahutar@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Shamim Adam at sadam2@bloomberg.net, John McCluskey

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