Passenger took dead bird on Air NZ flight
A spill from an Air New Zealand passenger’s hand luggage — potentially from a culled muttonbird — was so bad the airline had to find another plane to take the next scheduled flight.
Passengers were apparently told by the pilot of the domestic flight from Dunedin to Auckland on Friday afternoon that blood seen dripping from the overhead locker was from a muttonbird.
A passenger on a later flight tweeted about the knock-on delay to her flight, scheduled to depart Auckland at 6pm on the same plane.
Tweeter Marian said a pilot explained someone had brought a muttonbird, presumably dead, on board the flight.
An Air New Zealand spokeswoman confirmed a flight from Auckland to Wellington scheduled to depart at 6pm was delayed by around 35 minutes while an alternative aircraft was found.
“The aircraft originally scheduled to operate the service required additional cleaning following a spill from a customer’s hand luggage.”
She did not confirm the story the spill was caused by the dead bird.
The incident became referred to as “blood plane” in the Twitter thread with one commenter saying everything was fine as long as Mutton Birds lead singer Don McGlashan was okay.
The Mutton Birds were a New Zealand band in the 1990s famous for hits including Anchor Me and Nature.
The muttonbird, or tıtı, are the plentiful sooty shearwaters that nest in New Zealand and islands in the South Atlantic Ocean.
The seabird has the flesh of a bird but tastes like fish because of its diet. July and August are muttonbird season.