“The safety of our customers and crew is our top priority and we are closely monitoring the situation.”
Affected customers would be rebooked on the next available service to their destination, Marren said.
“We recommend customers keep an eye on the Air NZ app or website for the latest information on their flight.”
NZME head of radio news and sport Scarlett Cvitanovich is among the stranded New Zealanders. She said she’d been rebooked to fly home on Saturday night.
“I am here on the same island as [the] volcano but it’s 600km away and currently pitch black”, she said this morning.
Mt Lewotobi Laki-Laki spewed a colossal ash tower into the sky yesterday, after officials raised the alert level to the highest of a four-tiered system, AFP reported.
The 1584m-high twin-peaked volcano on the tourist island of Flores erupted at 5.35pm local time (9.35pm NZT), the volcanology agency said.
“The height of the eruption column was observed at approximately 10,000 metres above the summit.
“The ash column was observed to be grey with thick intensity,” it said, after the alert level was raised.
There were no immediate reports of damages or casualties.
Residents and tourists should avoid carrying out any activities within at least 7km of the volcano’s crater, geology agency head Muhammad Wafid said.
But he warned of the possibility of hazardous lahar floods – a type of mud or debris flow of volcanic materials – if heavy rain occurred, particularly for communities near to rivers.
He also urged residents to wear face masks to protect themselves from volcanic ash, AFP reported.
At least one village had to evacuate, National Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB) spokesman Abdul Muhari said late last night, without providing numbers.
Ash rain had also been reported in several villages outside the exclusion zone.
Muhari told residents around the volcano “to evacuate to safe locations” as tremors were still being detected, which indicated ongoing volcanic activity, AFP reported.
Mt Lewotobi Laki-Laki erupted multiple times in November, killing nine people and forcing thousands to evacuate, as well as the cancellation of scores of international flights to Bali.
Laki-Laki, which means man in Indonesian, is twinned with the calmer but taller 1703m volcano named Perempuan, after the Indonesian word for woman.
Indonesia, a vast archipelago nation, experiences frequent seismic and volcanic activity because of its position on the Pacific “Ring of Fire”.
Cherie Howie is an Auckland-based reporter who joined the Herald in 2011. She has been a journalist for more than 20 years and specialises in general news and features.