"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 Airs 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 airports 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 satellites monitoring, there were 244 hotspots across 11 districts in cities in Riau Province, on Feb. 11.
In Pelalawan District, Riau, the visibility dropped to 200 meters due to thick haze.
The government has planned to reduce the number of hotspots by 20 percent per year to meet the countrys pledge of cutting its CO2 emissions by 26 percent by the year 2020.
(f001/INE/o001)
EDITED BY INE
(T.SYS/A/KR-BSR/O001) 12-02-2014 13:49:36
Editor: Aditia Maruli Radja
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