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ourteen flights from Australia to Denpasar, Bali, have been canceled due to increasing volcanic activity at Mount Raung in Bondowoso, East Java, according to an official.

Head of Airport Region IV of Bali, Yusfandri Gona, said that the canceled flights included seven Virgin flights, six Jetstar flights and an Air New Zealand flight.

Yusfandri also said that domestic flights were not affected by the increasing volcanic activity as they used another flight path.

'€œTechnically the decision on whether a route is safe for flights has to be made based on a number of reports,'€ Yusfandri was quoted by tribunnews.com as saying on Sunday.

First, he said, the Meteorology Climatology and Geophysics Agency (BMKG) reported on the latest condition of the volcano and the intensity of its activity. Secondly, the BMKG reported it to the Air Navigation directorate general which then communicated it to pilots.

The BMKG, he added, also reported conditions to the international authorities, which the BMKG of affected countries could then analyze.

'€œMaybe the Australian BMKG considered it dangerous enough that the flights had to be canceled,'€ Yusfandri said.

He added that technically, flights from Australia to Bali did not use a flight path that passes over the Mount Raung area.

He said the Denpasar-Australia route operated by Jetstar, Virgin, Garuda Indonesia and AirAsia took another route that directly headed to the Australian continent.

Spokesperson of the National Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB), Sutopo Purwo Nugroho, said similarly.

'€œThe Volcanic Ash Advisory Center in Darwin had given a red alert on Australian flights based on the volcanic ash threats from Mt. Raung,'€ said Sutopo as quoted by CNN Indonesia.

The warning, according to Sutopo, was an effort from the Australian government to avoid possible air accident due to the eruption of Mt. Raung.

Sutopo also said that the eruption of Mt. Raung was actually categorized as Strombolian type, meaning that the danger it posed was not expanding.

This, he said, was because Mt. Raung'€™s crater was already opened up, spewing heavy searing material, thus no pressure was building up to trigger a big explosion.

'€œThe smoke from the eruption has only reached a height of less than a kilometer above the crater and the maximum height of the volcanic ash is only four kilometers above seas level, far below the cruising altitude of commercial flights,'€ he said.

The BNPB have not declared that the status of Mt. Raung as dangerous for commercial flights.

Meanwhile spokesperson of the Australian meteorology bureau, Jackson Browne, told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) that there was a minor possibility that Mt. Raung eruptions would cause major ash clouds.

'€œThe ash is very thin and could not be detected by the satellite image,'€ he said.

The flight cancellations caused passengers to crowd the information stands at the I Gusti Ngurah Rai International Airport, Bali, asking when the flights would return to normal.

Tari, an officer at the information stand, said that passengers were confused because they could not contact Virgin or Jetstar officers.