Australian flights resumed today, with the dense, low level ash cloud that affected flights in and out of Perth Airport overnight (15 June) now cleared.

Airservices, the federal government’s air traffic services provider, said the ash began to dissipate late last night, with many operators resuming some services from first thing this morning. It will take some hours for full services to resume.

The ash cloud is not expected to impact on any other Australian mainland capital cities within the next 24 hours. The ash that had been affecting services in Tasmania since the weekend has also cleared, with most flights also expected to resume today.

Services to and from NZ, however, are still experiencing widespread delays as a heavy blanket of ash covers the South Island.

Jetstar had advised that all Australian domestic services are expected to run to schedule today, but services to and from New Zealand (including New Zealand domestic) remain cancelled for the remainder of today.

“We continue to closely monitor the situation and a decision will be made on long haul international services between Singapore and Auckland later today,” the company said.

Pacific Blue, an airline of the Virgin Australia Group of Airlines, has suspended services into and out of Auckland and Hamilton in New Zealand, effective immediately because of the volcanic ash plume.

Group Executive Operations Sean Donohue said the plume that had been in the Christchurch, Wellington and Dunedin regions had moved further north, necessitating the schedule changes.

“These cancellations are in addition to the six flights cancelled yesterday to from Australia to Christchurch and Wellington.

“Guests should check the website for regular updates of information,” Mr.
Donohue said.

Airservices National Operations Centre in Canberra, together with meteorologists and the Bureau of Meteorology’s Volcanic Ash Advisory Centre (VAAC) in Darwin, have been monitoring the movement of the ash plume eastwards for more than a week.

The ash plume resulted from the eruption of Cordón Caulle in Southern Chile on 4 June. The initial eruption was estimated to reach a height of 50,000ft (15 km), with eruptions still continuing to 30,000ft (9 km).

According to Airservices, it is not unprecedented for a volcanic ash cloud to circumnavigate the globe. For example, in 1991 the volcano Cerro Hudson in Chile erupted and ash was transported twice around the world in two weeks, and was observed over south-east Australia a few days after the eruption.

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