Jetstar, Qantas, Virgin Australia and AirAsia flights have all been impacted.
“Like many airlines, a number of Jetstar flights to and from Bali have been disrupted tonight due to a volcanic ash cloud from Mount Lewotobi in Indonesia,” Jetstar said in a statement.
“Impacted customers have been notified directly and provided a range of options, including rebooking their travel for no charge or cancelling their bookings and obtaining a voucher to the value of their untravelled flight/s.”
Jetstar said it intended to operate at least two additional return services between Australia and Bali on Wednesday to help clear the backlog of passengers stranded by the cancellations.
This will include “a special flight using our larger 787 aircraft to get passengers to their destinations as soon as possible”.
While some Qantas flights earlier in the day took off as scheduled, the airline postponed a flight due to depart from Sydney on Tuesday night.
The takeoff time was delayed until 7am on Wednesday, pending weather conditions.
Four Virgin Australia flights were cancelled on Tuesday – two of those into Denpasar and two of them out of the Bali airport.
“The safety of our guests and crew is our highest priority,” a Virgin Australia spokesperson said.
“Adverse weather due to the volcano in Indonesia has resulted in some cancellations today, in and out of Denpasar.
“We regret the inconvenience this has caused our passengers, and our team is working hard to ensure all passengers booked on our services get to their destination safely and as soon as possible.”
Meteorologists are continuing to monitor the situation and airlines are set to make the call on further cancellations as required over the coming days.
Jetstar said it was hopeful services would return “as scheduled” on Wednesday but asked customers to monitor flight statuses online before heading to the airport.
Activity at the volcano on the remote island of Flores, in East Nusa Tenggara province, has increased since last Monday’s initial eruption. On Thursday, authorities expanded the danger zone as the volcano erupted again.
Friday’s activity saw the largest column of ash so far recorded at 10 kilometres high, Hadi Wijaya, the head of the Centre for Volcanology and Geological Disaster Mitigation, told a news conference.
Wijaya said volcanic materials, including smouldering rocks, lava, and hot, thumb-size fragments of gravel and ash, were thrown up to eight kilometres from the crater on Friday.
There were no casualties reported from the latest eruption as the 1584-metre volcano shot billowing columns of ash at least three times on Saturday, rising up to nine kilometres, the volcano monitoring agency said.
