REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, PEKANBARU -- Smog caused by forest fires led to 16 flight delays and six cancellations at Sultan Syarif Kasim II Airport here on Tuesday.

"Today's flights are affected (by smog), causing 16 delays and six cancellations," General Manager of Sultan Syarif Kasim II Dani Indra Irawan remarked.

Garuda Indonesia and Citilink cancelled flights to Jakarta, while AirAsia cancelled flights to Bandung.

Flight delays were experienced by 11 airlines: Lion Air, Garuda Indonesia, Batik Air, Indonesia AirAsia, Susi Air, Silk Air, Citilink Indonesia, AirAsia, Firefly, Sriwijaya Air, and Malindo Air.

However, flights resumed in the afternoon as the visibility improved up to 1.5 thousand meters.

Since September 2, haze has frequently affected the Pekanbaru airport, and on September 3, the airport's operations were nearly paralyzed.

In the meantime, in Jambi Province, as many as 22 flights to and from the Sultan Thaha Syaifudin Airport were cancelled on September 7 due to the haze.

The airlines that canceled their flights were Garuda Indonesia, Lion Air, CitiLink, and Nam Air, the airport's acting General Manager, Gurit Setiawan, stated on Monday.

"Not a single aircraft has landed at the airport today. Many airlines have cancelled their flights. Ten flight arrivals to and 12 flight departures from the airport have been cancelled, meaning that a total of 22 flights have been cancelled," he remarked.

By Monday evening, 13 airlines had postponed their flights to and from the airport. However, with the visibility continuing to drop, these 13 flights are likely to be cancelled, Syaifudin added.

The Transportation Ministry reported that 16 airports on Sumatra and Kalimantan Islands have been affected by the forest fire smog blanketing the region in the past week.

"The visibility has been reduced to below 800 meters, preventing any aircraft from landing," the ministry's spokesman, J.A. Barata, noted in a press statement on September 7.

Forest fires producing smog have flared up on the islands of Sumatra, Kalimantan, Java, and Sulawesi during the current El Nino-induced drought.

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