Several flights from Saudi Arabia to different destinations in the Horn of Africa, including Eritrea, Ethiopia, Sudan and Djibouti, have been cancelled or rescheduled after a massive ash cloud entered the skies of Eritrea following a volcanic eruption.
In a statement posted by the Bahrain News Agency a spokesman of Saudi Arabian Airlines Abdullah Al-Azhar said that local flights operating to Tabuk and a few other destinations in the Kingdom will also be affected.
“In fact, Saudi Arabia and Jordan are likely to be affected by the ash,” he said, adding that the airline was awaiting an updated advisory about the status of the movement of the ash cloud.
“The ash cloud is likely to reach Saudi Arabia by Monday late night or Tuesday early morning,” warned an African airline official, citing predictions by the France-based Volcanic Ash Advisory Center (VACC).
“The ash plume will spread toward the Middle East Monday night and by 6 a.m. on Tuesday. The ash is expected to get caught in a west-to-east jet stream and spread to the skies over parts of Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Sudan, Jordan, Yemen and Iraq,” the VACC advisory added.
“But, the movement of the plume of ash from Eritrea to the Kingdom and the Gulf region will depend on the direction and the speed of the wind,” said Mansour Almazrui, director of the Jeddah-based Center of Excellence for Climate Change Research and head of the department of meteorology at King Abdulaziz University (KAU), on Monday.
“A long-dormant volcano erupted in Eritrea after a series of earthquakes and sent a 13.5 km plume of ash into the air,” according to VACC.
It has already led to the cancellation of some flights to East Africa from different countries of the Middle East and Europe.
The German airline Lufthansa said it had canceled flights from Germany to Eritrea and neighboring Ethiopia. “But, Lufthansa flights from the Kingdom are still on schedule,” said a local airline executive. Referring to the problems faced by airlines, Saleem K. Azmi, an aviation expert, said that the ash was predicted to reach Saudi Arabia, Jordan and southern Israel soon. Some airlines have already cancelled their flights, while some are rescheduling their flights within the next 96 hours. The ash is likely to hamper air travel because of the geographical proximity between the Kingdom and Asmara.