Anak Krakatau Eruption and Cancelled Flights: What to Do If Your Visa Is Expiring
As recently as Friday, a departure from Denpasar was just an ordinary line in the schedule. By Sunday, September 6, 2026, volcanic ash from Anak Krakatau had closed part of the airspace over western Indonesia, and dozens of flights from I Gusti Ngurah Rai airport were cancelled or rescheduled. For those whose visa is expiring this week, a cancelled flight is no longer just an inconvenience: it carries immigration consequences.
What Happened with the Flights
According to CNN Indonesia, citing the press office of I Gusti Ngurah Rai airport, by 15:30 WITA on September 6 cancellations and schedule changes had affected 42 flights. According to a breakdown by Antara, the heaviest impact was on the Bali-Jakarta route: seven flights from Soekarno-Hatta to Denpasar were cancelled, 30 flights from Denpasar to Soekarno-Hatta were cancelled, and one more was delayed. Two flights to Halim Perdanakusuma and two to Bandung were also cancelled.
International flights were affected to a lesser extent. One international flight was still disrupted: Citilink QG500 on the Denpasar-Dili route, carrying 94 passengers, did not depart because the aircraft assigned to it could not take off from Soekarno-Hatta. This is reported by Liputan6. Ngurah Rai airport itself continues to operate, and passport control on arrival and departure is running as normal.
How the Immigration Service Responded
Passengers on the cancelled flight went through a separate procedure. Officers at Imigrasi Ngurah Rai corrected the border-crossing data for all 94 people in the immigration system so the records would match the actual situation, and checked the stay permit (izin tinggal) status of each one. No passenger was found to have overstayed.
The head of the Class I Khusus Immigration Office TPI Ngurah Rai (Kepala Kantor Imigrasi Kelas I Khusus TPI Ngurah Rai), Muhamad Novyandri, explained the reasoning behind these actions: the office adjusted the data so that no passenger would face an administrative penalty over circumstances beyond their control. His comments are reported by JPNN Bali.
The basis for this was a letter from the Directorate General of Immigration (Ditjen Imigrasi) No. IMI.8-GR.09.06-045 dated 2 September 2026, titled "Optimalisasi Pemeriksaan Imigrasi dalam Kondisi Kahar" (on optimizing immigration checks under force majeure conditions). As the Ngurah Rai immigration office itself reports, the document requires regional offices to step up monitoring of international flights and the situation at airports.
What This Letter Does Not Mean
It is important not to draw the wrong conclusion here. The letter concerns the operating procedures of immigration offices under force majeure conditions and flight monitoring. It is not a publicly announced overstay amnesty, and it does not remove a foreigner's obligation to track the expiration of their stay permit.
However, on September 7, 2026, the Directorate General of Immigration announced support measures: foreigners affected by the eruptions (Anak Krakatau, Semeru, Ili Lewotolok) are issued an Izin Tinggal Keadaan Terpaksa (ITKT) for up to 30 days with the possibility of extension, and the overstay fee for them is set at Rp 0. To do this, you need to contact the immigration office with a certificate from the airline or the airport administration. This is reported by CNN Indonesia. Outside this mechanism, the standard overstay fee is Rp 1,000,000 per day for overstays under 60 days; for overstays of 60 days or more, deportation and an entry ban apply.
The case at Ngurah Rai shows that the immigration authorities are willing to look into the substance of a situation and not treat as overstay something caused by a cancelled flight. But this was a decision made for the specific passengers of a specific flight, not a universal rule you can count on in advance. If your visa has already expired and there is still no flight, the matter is resolved through the immigration office, with your documents in hand.
What to Do If Your Departure Is Cancelled and Your Visa Is Expiring
If your departure is cancelled and only a week remains before your izin tinggal ends, you need to act now. Under normal circumstances, a seven-day margin looks sufficient, but with airports closed, schedules are being rebuilt every day, and a new departure date can easily fall outside the validity of your stay permit.
Save the airline's official confirmation of the cancellation or rescheduling: an email, an in-app notification, or a screenshot of the flight status. This is your primary document; a verbal explanation to immigration is not enough.
Record the new boarding pass or booking for the next available flight as soon as the airline issues it.
Count how many days remain before your stay permit expires, and compare that with the date of the new departure.
If the new departure falls outside your visa's validity period, do not wait until the last day. An extension or change of status is filed in advance, and under force majeure conditions it is better to have a margin.
Contact us before your permit expires. Our team can help assess your situation, put together the set of documents, and approach the immigration office.
The Situation as of September 7
The volcano is at alert Level III (Siaga). This level has been in force since 2 July 2026, and the exclusion zone is 3 km. The continuous eruption phase, lasting about 25 hours, ended on September 6 at 00:04 WIB, but individual explosions are continuing, and Badan Geologi warns that a decrease in seismic activity does not mean it has ended. As of September 7, Soekarno-Hatta airport remains closed until 18:00 WIB; four airports are closed in total: Soekarno-Hatta, Halim Perdanakusuma, Radin Inten II in Lampung, and Husein Sastranegara in Bandung. Six were closed earlier that morning. Restrictions are being revised as new data comes in, and AirNav Indonesia updates airport statuses through NOTAM several times a day.
Schedules change throughout the day, so check your flight status directly with the airline rather than relying on general news reports.
A cancelled flight is a circumstance beyond your control. An overstayed visa without documents explaining the reason is already your responsibility. If your departure has fallen through and your stay permit is nearing its end, contact us before the matter becomes urgent.
