# Typhoon Dolphin Grounds Nearly 40 Percent of Shanghai Flights as Fires Spread in Indonesia

Two Malaysian states recorded unhealthy air on Monday as smoke drifted north, while a fire in Indonesia's Mount Bromo park burned 550 hectares before crews contained it.

- Published: 2026-08-10T05:10:12.847Z
- Canonical: https://polylog.news/2026-08-10/typhoon-dolphin-grounds-nearly-40-percent-of-shanghai-flight
- Publisher: Polylog (Global desk)
- Section: world
- Sources: [South China Morning Post](https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3363486/40-flights-grounded-shanghai-long-lived-typhoon-dolphin-moves-north?utm_source=rss_feed), [South China Morning Post](https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/health-environment/article/3363488/haze-returns-malaysias-sarawak-selangor-indonesian-wildfires-burn-out-control?utm_source=rss_feed), [South China Morning Post](https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/southeast-asia/article/3363481/indonesias-mount-bromo-wildfire-put-out-new-fires-threaten-unusually-dry-season?utm_source=rss_feed)

Shanghai's airports cancelled [close to 40 percent of Monday's flights](https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3363486/40-flights-grounded-shanghai-long-lived-typhoon-dolphin-moves-north?utm_source=rss_feed) after Typhoon Dolphin made landfall in eastern China on Sunday evening and continued moving north, according to a city government notice reported by the South China Morning Post. Heavy rain persisted through the morning. Shanghai handles a large share of China's air freight as well as passenger traffic, so a day of cancellations at Pudong and Hongqiao removes capacity from export supply chains as well as travel.

Further south, forest fires in Indonesia are producing transboundary smoke again. At least two Malaysian states, Sarawak and Selangor, [registered unhealthy air readings](https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/health-environment/article/3363488/haze-returns-malaysias-sarawak-selangor-indonesian-wildfires-burn-out-control?utm_source=rss_feed) on Monday as smoke moved north.

Indonesian authorities said a fire in Mount Bromo National Park in East Java that burned [550 hectares has been extinguished](https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/southeast-asia/article/3363481/indonesias-mount-bromo-wildfire-put-out-new-fires-threaten-unusually-dry-season?utm_source=rss_feed), though new hotspots have appeared near the caldera during what officials describe as an unusually dry season.

Both events are ordinary in isolation and cumulative in effect. A single typhoon costs a day of flights. A dry season that produces recurring fires costs Malaysia and Indonesia in school closures, hospital admissions, aviation visibility and tourism arrivals, year after year, with no insurance market that prices it well.

## What this means

Air freight capacity out of Shanghai tightens whenever a storm closes the airports, which raises spot rates for electronics and pharmaceutical shippers that rely on scheduled belly capacity. In Southeast Asia the haze operates through tourism bookings, aviation delays and public health spending, costs that are borne by Malaysian and Indonesian budgets rather than by the plantations and smallholders whose burning produces the smoke.

## What to watch

- How quickly Shanghai clears its flight backlog, the practical measure of whether this becomes a freight disruption or a one-day delay.
- Air quality readings in Kuala Lumpur and Singapore over the coming week, since a sustained deterioration usually triggers diplomatic friction between Jakarta and its neighbours.
- Whether Indonesia's fire hotspot count keeps rising into September, which would mark this dry season as worse than recent years.