Puyehue-Cordón Caulle: flight disruption in Australia and New Zealand as the ash returns

From the Australian Bureau of Meteorology comes a remarkable animated sequence of satellite images showing the ash cloud from Chile’s Puyehue-Cordón Caulle volcano circumnavigating the globe between 6 and 11 June. Four stills from the animation are reproduced above: for the full sequence click on the image or follow this link to the story at Australian Business Traveller.

Most of the current news coverage of the ongoing Puyehue-Cordón Caulle eruption is indeed concerned with the return of the volcano’s ash to plague flights in Australia and New Zealand. ‘This is going to unfortunately have a knock-on effect for many travelers’ says a Qantas spokeswoman, producing as ugly and gratuitous a spit infinitive as I have seen in a long while. Australian airlines seem to be readier to cancel flights than their New Zealand counterparts: Qantas and its low-cost subsidiary Jetstar have cancelled their services in and out of New Zealand, reports the New Zealand Herald, while Air New Zealand has ‘continued near normal operations by flying at a lower altitude’ (although when the earlier cloud came in at just 3,000 metres Air New Zealand were also forced to cancel flights). Virgin and Tiger Airways began cancelling flights yesterday, and there are more disruptions today: Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane have all been affected. The ash cloud has also had some effect on Cape Town International Airport in South Africa, where a small number of flights were delayed on 19 June as the ash cloud, on its second circumnavigation of the globe, passed directly across the flight paths. Among those whose travel plans were affected was South Africa’s President Jacob Zuma – erupting volcanoes are no respecters of persons.

The ash is forecast to remain to the south and south-east of Australia for the next day or so, according to the latest volcanic ash advisory from Darwin VAAC (issued 08:57 UTC 21 June 2011). The map accompanying the advisory is shown below: click on it to view the full-size original at Darwin VAAC.

The latest news on the flight disruption is that Virgin is planning to resume flying earlier than expected, following forecasts that the ash is due to move ‘into the Tasman [Sea] tomorrow and no longer affect flights from the major cities’.

News
Drop in degrees the only danger from ash – New Zealand Herald, 19 June 2011
Operations on schedule at Cape Town International Airport – Cape Gateway, 20 June 2011
Ash cloud returns: Virgin, Tiger suspend flights – Sydney Morning Herald, 20 June 2011
Chilean volcanic ash cloud affects flights in South Africa – MercoPress, 21 June 2011
Australian airlines cut flights as ash cloud returns – Wall Street Journal, 21 June 2011
Major airports face ash cloud shutdown – ABC News, 21 June 2011
Jetstar, Qantas cancel NZ flights – New Zealand Herald, 21 June 2011
Amazing animation of the Chilean volcano’s ash cloud spanning the globe – Australian Business Traveller, 21 June 2011
Virgin back in the air sooner as ash goes – News.com.au, 21 June 2011

Information
Global Volcanism Program: Puyehue-Cordón Caulle volcanic complex – summary information for the PCCVC (1507-15=)