REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, PEKANBARU -- The operations at Sultan Syarif Kasim (SSK) II International Airport of Pekanbaru were paralyzed since Sunday as the haze arising from forest and plantation fires thickened.
"Since morning until noon today, no aircraft could fly. The airport's operations are paralyzed again, after they nearly came to a standstill yesterday," Hasnan Siregar, the airport's duty manager, noted here on Monday.
The visibility dropped to 100 meters in the morning and improved to 400 meters by noon, forcing cancellations of all flights to and from Pekanbaru.
Today, 78 domestic and international flights are scheduled to take off from or land at the airport, and 22 of them have been cancelled so far.
The operations of some 11 airlines --- Lion Air, Garuda Indonesia, Batik Air, Indonesia AirAsia, Citilink, Susi Air, Silk Air, AirAsia, Firefly, Sriwijaya Air, and Malindo Air --- were affected by the haze.
On Sunday (Oct. 18), the Pekanbaru Office of the Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency (BMKG) detected 813 hotspots across seven provinces on Sumatra Island.
Of the total hotpots, 645 hotspots were found in South Sumatra, 70 in Jambi, 49 in Riau, and 11 in Lampung.
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