Stranded. That was the first thought that came to mind when the public address system announced the closure of Bali'€™s Ngurah Rai International Airport on Sunday.

My group of 14 Malaysians cursed our luck. Over the preceding three days, we had been closely following reports of volcanic eruptions on Mount Raung on the island of Java.

The airport had been shut twice already because the plumes of volcanic ash had forced many of the international airlines to cancel their flights to and from Bali.

But the airport re-opened on Saturday, giving us hope that we could leave on schedule.

Alas, this was not to be, but in the end, we considered ourselves lucky to have made it back home after enduring a nine-hour delay at the airport.

Many of the holidaymakers had it worse. Thousands of tourists were stranded, and many of them chose to '€œcamp'€ in the airport itself in the hope that flights would eventually resume.

The unlucky ones had to wait a day or more before being allowed to board their flights.

I saw first-hand the utter chaos the flight disruptions caused as we made our way to the airport on Sunday to catch our Malindo flight to Kuala Lumpur.

Hundreds of passengers could be seen sitting or sleeping on the floors.

Many of the airport counter and ticketing staff were besieged by anxious and angry tourists trying to get the latest information.

The airport'€™s public address system kept repeating the same lines every 20 minutes: '€œThe airport will remain closed until 4pm.'€

Airport personnel appeared clueless as to exactly when flights would resume.

This wasn'€™t entirely their fault because Indonesia'€™s climatology, meteorology and geophysics agency was advising the authorities on wind conditions.

Mount Raung is 150km away from Bali, but the volcanic ash had drifted dangerously close to the airport because of the shifting winds.

This was a natural disaster that no one could have predicted.

The tourism industry is the biggest revenue earner for Bali and the volcanic eruption happened at the worst possible time '€“ the peak holiday season.

Holidaymakers are now cancelling bookings and this is going to hit Bali hard.

Hotels, tour operators, restaurants, clubs '€“ the businesses connected with the tourism industry '€“ have already started to feel the pinch.

No one knows when the volcanic ash will stop. It could be weeks or even months because Mount Raung continues to erupt.

A similar eruption of the Icelandic volcano Eyjafjallajokull in 2010 caused widespread disruption of air traffic throughout Europe.

The huge ash cloud from this eruption forced the cancellation and diversion of thousands of flights per day at the height of the crisis, affecting millions of passengers.

The Mount Raung eruption also echoes another incident in 2011 when airspace over Chile, Argentina, Brazil and even Australia and New Zealand was closed following the eruption of a volcano in Chile.

Because of past instances when jet aircraft were damaged following encounters with volcanic ash, airlines are not taking the risks of having their planes anywhere close to ash clouds.

But could the Indonesian authorities have handled the situation better?

I believe so, because while this was a natural disaster, the airport authorities, especially, failed to provide proper information to the thousands of stranded tourists.

This lack of communication was the main grouse for many of the holidaymakers I spoke to.

'€œThe Bali airport website that gives details of flight arrival and departure times was not updated. None of the electronic information boards in the airport was updated,'€ said Seth Thomas, a young Australian backpacker.

He said that none of the airport staff he spoke to could give any information that would have helped him decide what to do '€“ either leave the airport and spend the night in Bali town or stay at the airport and wait for the next available flight to Sydney.

The Australians appear to be the largest group of foreigners stranded in Bali, but Qantas, Virgin Australia and Jetstar have all scheduled additional flights to bring their nationals home.

There were also many Malaysians who were caught unawares by the airport closure.

On Sunday, Malaysia Airlines first rescheduled their afternoon flight from Bali and then cancelled it.

Both AirAsia and Malindo delayed their afternoon flights from Ngurah Rai.

Their airplanes finally took off at about 10pm, after a delay of nine hours.

If the lack of information from the airport authorities was worrying, the absence of any sort of communication from my carrier, Malindo, was even more disappointing.

None of the Malindo staff at the airport could tell us if there was going to be a flight out from Bali, and this was even after the airport was re-opened.

Yes, a fellow Malaysian traveller did receive an SMS from Malindo to indicate that the flight had been rescheduled, but no one could verify this.

Calls to the airline'€™s hotline in Kuala Lumpur went unanswered.

Just as we were thinking of spending an additional night in Bali, we were told that a Malindo flight would be taking off.

We were mightily relieved, but a group of about 20 Indian nationals travelling on the same flight were not so lucky.

Due to catch their connecting flight in Kuala Lumpur to Mumbai on Sunday afternoon, the group, with young children who were tired and hungry in tow, was forced to spend their Monday morning sleeping on benches in KLIA2 while waiting to catch another connecting flight. (*)

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