Chile ash cloud: Canceled flights in Australia strand thousands; service may resume Wednesday
June 21, 2011|By Mary Forgione | Los Angeles Times Daily Travel & Deal blogger
An empty Gate 13 at Sydney Airport, where hundreds of flights were canceled… (Daniel Munoz / Reuters )
Virgin Australia, JetStar and Qantas airlines Tuesday canceled hundreds of flights in and out of Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and Canberra due to the volcanic ash cloud from Chile, which has circled the globe and swirled into airspace in southeastern Australia. Thousands of passengers were stranded.
But airlines planned to resume service Wednesday as the plume appears to be heading toward the Tasman Sea and away from Australian air space. Carriers were shooting for 2 p.m. Wednesday for resuming domestic and international flights in and out of Sydney.
V Australia, the international wing of Virgin Australia, was forced to divert a flight from Los Angeles to Brisbane instead of Sydney on Tuesday because of the conditions, the airline's website said. Passengers are now scheduled to be flown from Brisbane to Sydney by mid-afternoon Wednesday, provided that conditions improve.
Passengers holding airline tickets to Australia in the next few days should contact their airline and check out its website or Facebook page for updates. Airlines are continuing to waive change fees, and they add this advice for stranded (or soon-to-be stranded) travelers: Consider rerouting your trip or changing your destination.
The Sydney Morning Herald reports that about 60,000 travelers were stranded Tuesday by the flight cancellations. The ash cloud has intermittently disrupted air travel in the Southern Hemisphere since Chile's Puyehue-Cordón Caulle volcano erupted June 4.
So how do airlines decide whether it's safe to fly? This Qantas video is heavy on the "safety first" message, but it also offers an insider's look at how the airline assesses forecasts and impacts every six hours. More interesting is an explanation of how ash harms planes, i.e., acting as a kind of sandblaster aimed at a plane's windscreen or getting sucked into engines and turning into harmful glass particles.
