Bali Flights Cancelled due to Lewotobi Volcano Nov. 2024

[Saab34]

Should be good to go now.

 

[Harrison_133]

Virgin have scheduled a recovery flight departing Bali for Melbourne at 4:35pm using the MAX currently stuck there.

 

[jomar]

Qantas and Jetstar have just put out updates saying they're resuming operations to Bali (until the situation changes again…).

I would love it if Air New Zealand would provide similar information about their plans. They fly AKL-DPS on Sun/Wed/Fri. They cancelled yesterday's flight, and I'm on tomorrow's! It's currently still bookable, so fingers crossed…

 

[Stuckinbali]

Virgin have scheduled a recovery flight departing Bali for Melbourne at 4:35pm using the MAX currently stuck there.

Can I ask where you heard this, we are ones in Bali that have been pushed back a week from Tuesday. After ringing Virgin they offered us only one day sooner but via Melbourne to Sydney. Not understanding who will be offered a recovery flight as we haven’t been.

 

[Flyfrequently]

Can I ask where you heard this, we are ones in Bali that have been pushed back a week from Tuesday. After ringing Virgin they offered us only one day sooner but via Melbourne to Sydney. Not understanding who will be offered a recovery flight as we haven’t been.

I cannot answer your question but a warm welcome to AFF @Stuckinbali
Hope you can make the best of a frustrating situation.

 

[Stuckinbali]

FFS .

https://www.news.com.au/travel/travel-updates/incidents/flights-to-bali-grounded-after-volcanic-eruption-covers-sky-in-ash/news-story/3fb58aff02a641ce3ef03b5ea93d1c7d

I have a feeling Alexandra Feiam doesn’t get out much

I cannot answer your question but a warm welcome to AFF @Stuckinbali
Hope you can make the best of a frustrating situation.

Thanks AFF, would like to head home after a few weeks here, but not the end of the world, people in the world worse off than us. Got a nice little villa with a pool cheap for the extended stay so making the most of it

 

[DejaBrew]

Welcome aboard AFF @Stuckinbali and hopefully you'll be welcomed aboard a homeward bound flight sooner rather than later

 

[Harrison_133]

Can I ask where you heard this, we are ones in Bali that have been pushed back a week from Tuesday. After ringing Virgin they offered us only one day sooner but via Melbourne to Sydney. Not understanding who will be offered a recovery flight as we haven’t been.

The Virgin flight status page shows a VA9552 scheduled for today with Flight Radar assigning VH-8IH for the flight. VA95xx flight numbers are typically used for recovery flights, but the seat map for VA9552 currently shows the flight as being empty. I'd say the aircraft is repositioning back to Melbourne empty, probably to do with crew duty limits.

Usually repositioning flights use VA99xx flight numbers, but on second thought whenever they've had aircraft position empty from DPS to Australia in the past, they've all used VA95xx numbers. Probably something to do with Indonesian paperwork.

 

[Saab34]

Virgin said on ABC the 435pm is a recovery flight.

All airlines should have crews stuck in DPS so the return legs shouldn’t be an issue, can’t see why duty issues would be an issue, they have all had 3 days off in DPS.

 

[Harrison_133]

First flight to make a move – VA91 just departed Melbourne for Bali.

 

[p--and--t]

Both QF and JQ announced resuming flights (via ABC24)

 

[Saab34]

I think Virgin’s charter 435pm from DPS wasn’t a passenger flight it seems, the ABC said the opposite, but seat map has very few seats taken and it looks like crewing only.

 

[Cynicor]

Interestingly my go to TI (CoverMore) does not appear to have exclusions for "act of god" - earthquakes, floods, tsunamis, volcanic ash etc. Maybe I did not look carefully. Will check again tonight

No TI in Aus has acts of god exclusions. It’s an American thing.
Edit- that said, a policy may exclude natural disasters but I’ve never seen it. Worth always checking your pds over before buying.

 

[Saab34]

Keep an eye on it. Has crept further West again, 119E seems to be the end point at this moment.

 

[p--and--t]

"act of god"

For atheists there is not such thing.

Would be interesting to see how a truly secular court would rule on such a phrase.

 

[Quickstatus]

For atheists there is not such thing.

It is an accepted and commonly used term in a lot of insurance policies/contract law.

The other term that is perhaps used more is "force majeure" which is translated to a similar "superior force" - which ironically atheists may also have a problem with.

 

[Stuckinbali]

Hi Has anyone today received a text message from virgin regarding recovery flights.
It gives a number to ring which disconnects after saying welcome to virgin.
We purchased the holiday with velocity points and when you ring virgin on other contacts number and they find out you used points for flights they say they can’t help you.
Very disappointing

 

[Quickstatus]

We purchased the holiday with velocity points

Meaning you purchased the flights with points?

 

[Stuckinbali]

Meaning you purchased the flights with points?

Yes

 

[RooFlyer]

Keep an eye on it. Has crept further West again, 119E seems to be the end point at this moment.

Not picking on you (but prompted by your 'seeming end point' comment ); I've been looking into the data behind the Darwin VAAC advisories to better understand them.

There is a lot less info for Darwin VAAC, compared to London, which has detail on their methodologies

The London VAAC process

The London VAAC has specialist forecasters who produce volcanic ash advisories and guidance products using a combination of data from observations and models.

www.metoffice.gov.uk

London_VAAC_Current_Modelling_SetUp_v01-0_201103 | Met Office UA

digital.nmla.metoffice.gov.uk

and there are links to various ICAO protocols and advisories, if anyone would like to follow up.

Most of Darwin's advisories seem to be on 'satellite imagery and model guidance' (although I see the most recent one includes VONA - volcano observatory notice for aviation). One from yesterday



The first thing I notice is the shape of the 'volcanic ash clouds'




These angular shapes are obviously envelopes around some aspect of the ash dispersion plume but they don't say what (at least as far as I can find - I stand to be corrected). Having a blunt leading edge just looks weird.

Have a look at the current satellite image Live Weather Satellite Map | Zoom Earth (30 min delay) I could readily find. You can easily see that the ash plume is currently very wide north-south on the west and extends well west of Bali. It will be dispersing and thinning in density as it goes west.



These are the current Darwin VAAC envelope and forecasts



So the Darwin VACC envelopes appear to be some 'call' on the density of the ash plume, but they don't say what the criteria is; probably includes infra-red and other spectra (?reflectivity?) to determine a 'safe' level. Never-the-less you can tell from FR24 that any plane flying into or out of DPS will encounter some ash.



If anyone has info on the methodology of the Darwin VAAC, particularly on what they use to define their envelopes, it would be interesting to know.