MELAK - Wildfire haze has forced Melalan Airport in East Kalimantan to cancel flights through Sept. 5.
The Melalan Airport authority said flights to and from the airport in West Kutai Regency were cancelled from Sept. 1 to 5 because smoke from forest and land fires had pushed visibility below operational requirements. The disruption followed earlier cancellations from Aug. 28 to 30.
Airport chief Bernard Repelita Purba told ANTARA in reporting published Thursday that visibility had deteriorated to below one kilometre, forcing airport operations to stop. Wings Air and Smart Aviation services were among those affected.
“We took this step purely for flight safety,” Purba said. The airport said flights could resume once visibility, weather and other safety conditions again met operational requirements.
The haze also disrupted aviation in West Kalimantan a day earlier. AirNav Indonesia said visibility in Pontianak fell to 600 metres by 11:57 WIB on Sept. 2, causing all flights to be delayed at that point. One Jakarta-Pontianak flight returned to its departure airport.
Conditions at Supadio International Airport had been worse earlier that morning. Supadio airport officials said visibility was around 200 metres, disrupting take-offs and landings. Garuda Indonesia flight GA500 returned to Soekarno-Hatta Airport after being unable to land in Pontianak.
Garuda communications chief Dicky Irchamsyah said the aircraft landed back in Jakarta at 10:13 WIB. After conditions improved, it departed again at 12:51 and landed safely in Pontianak at 14:25.
AirNav also reported smoke-related disruption at Juwata Airport in Tarakan, North Kalimantan, on Sept. 1, where one flight was diverted and three were delayed. By Sept. 2, visibility in North Kalimantan had improved to about 3,000–5,000 metres.
Indonesia’s meteorological agency BMKG said high-confidence hotspots detected on Aug. 31 were concentrated mainly in Kalimantan. Its Sept. 1–6 outlook said relatively dry conditions were expected to remain dominant across much of the island, although local rain was still possible.
“If there is any potential disruption, we will, in accordance with procedure, release that information to pilots and airlines as quickly as possible,” AirNav chief Avirianto Suratno said.
