Batam-Pekanbaru Flight Cancelled in Anticipation of Haze

Pekanbaru Feb 12 (Antara) - Lion Air decided to cancel its flight serving the Batam-Pekanbaru route on Wednesday morning in anticipation of haze coming from forest and plantation fires. "A Lion Air flight from Batam to Pekanbaru has been cancelled," Duty Manager at Sultan Syarif Kasim II Airport Baiquni stated here on Wednesday. The Lion Air flight no. JT 237 was supposed to have arrived in Pekanbaru at 10 a.m. local time. On Wednesday morning, the flight schedules at the Pekanbaru airport were all basically normal, except for the Lion Air flight from Batam, he noted. The visibility between 7 and 9 in the morning was around one thousand to 1.5 thousand meters, he pointed out. But, it was Lion Air's policy to decide on the cancellation, he added. On Tuesday (Feb. 11), haze forced Garuda Indonesia, Lion Air and Air Asia to postpone their flights to Pekanbaru, Riau, as the visibility had decreased to 500 meters. A Garuda flight was initially scheduled to land at the Sultan Syarif Kasim II airport in Pekanbaru, at 7 a.m. local time and a Lion Air flight at 8 a.m., but their landings were postponed until 10 a.m. local time, the airport's duty manager, Baiquni, reported here on Tuesday. Garuda and Lion Air flights had taken off from Jakarta. Air Asia, too, decided to delay its flight by two hours from Bandung, West Java, to Pekanbaru due to the haze. A number of flights from Pekanbaru to other destinations were also delayed in the morning. Based on the NOAA 18 satellite's monitoring, there were 244 hotspots across 11 districts in cities in Riau Province, on Feb. 11. (*)