SEVERAL airlines on Thursday cancelled flights in and out of Buenos Aires due to an ash cloud spewing from a volcano in neighbouring Chile, officials said.
Aerolíneas Argentinas, LAN and Austral canceled flights from Buenos Aires' Jorge Newbery Metropolitan (aka Aeroparque) and Ezeiza International airports after the ash cloud arrived in the city, and Spain's Iberia airline canceled three flights from Madrid to the Argentine capital, the Buenos Aires Herald reported. The latter flights were rerouted to Santiago, Chile.
Seven international arrivals and nine departures from abroad were also shelved due to Chile's Puyehue volcano which has upended air travel and tourism since it erupted in early June for the first time in five decades.
Airports in the resort town of Bariloche and the Patagonian hub Neuquen have remained closed since June 4 after winds spread the volcanic ash across much of southern Argentina, intermittently grounding commercial flights and airports in and around the country's capital.
Flights from airports across South America - including hubs in Montevideo, the Chilean capital Santiago and southern Brazilian cities - have also been hit as ash clouds, swept around the Southern Hemisphere to linger over Australia and New Zealand.
Puyehue, which rumbled to life early this month for the first time since 1960, is high in the Andes mountains, 870km south of Santiago and near the border with Argentina.
Smoke and ash shot more than six miles into the sky when the Puyehue volcano in southern Chile first erupted Saturday afternoon. Authorities evacuated about 3,500 people from the area, the state emergency office said. This is not a joke. I had decided to rent apartments in buenos aires long before this happened and the rental company was understanding and knew how to adapt to this circumstances and said they are going to keep the reservation till I can fly there!
ReplyDeleteLindsay