Air New Zealand says it has been checking its planes and all appear to be free of ash from the erupting volcano in Chile.
But a new cloud of ash over Australia, which is headed for New Zealand, has caused chaos across the ditch, as Qantas and Jetstar cancelled all flights tonight.
Ash from the Cordon Caulle volcano grounded hundreds of flights and stranded tens of thousands of passengers last week when it hovered over several cities in Australia and New Zealand.
By Friday, all flights were running normally, but the ash has lapped the globe and was causing more problems on Tuesday.
Australian flagship carrier Qantas said on Tuesday that it had suspended all services to and from the southern city of Adelaide, all flights through the national capital, Canberra, starting at noon, and all flights through Sydney, Australia's largest city, from mid-afternoon.
Qantas flights to Europe via Bangkok were moved up to early afternoon, while six flights to New Zealand were cancelled.
Qantas budget subsidiary Jetstar made similar cancellations in Sydney, Adelaide and Canberra.
Budget airline Tiger said it grounded its entire fleet at least until early afternoon because the planes were in cloud-affected areas.
Virgin Australia cancelled all flights to Adelaide, and flights through Canberra from early afternoon.
"We have about 170 flights which have now been .... actioned for cancelling today. That will go into more now that we've also just decided to cancel Melbourne. So, we're looking at certainly over 25,000 people that will be affected by this," said Virgin Australia spokesperson Danielle Keighery.
Andrew Tupper from Australia's Volcanic Ash Advisory Centre said the ash cloud would blow away quickly.
"It's been moving very quickly. What we're doing though is watching the rest of the cloud which is still in the Southern Ocean and just trying to anticipate how much might come northwards," he said.
Chilean officials said on Sunday that the Cordon Caulle volcano, which began erupting on June 4, was becoming less active.
APTN / 3 News
source: newshub archive
