Multiple domestic flights cancelled amid travel woes
Multiple departing flights have been cancelled at Auckland Airport, causing headaches for school holiday travellers across the country.
Yesterday’s affected flights were to Christchurch, Wellington, Bay of Islands, Whanga¯ rei, Rotorua, Taupo¯ and Blenheim. Two flights scheduled for early today – one headed to Christchurch and the other headed to Wellington – have also been cancelled.
Seven of the cancelled flights are operated by Air New Zealand.
The airline’s chief customer and sales officer, Leanne Geraghty, said it had been managing wild weather, crew sickness and engineering issues over recent days. Conditions, coupled with ‘‘the busiest period of travel’’ seen since pre-Covid, created the perfect storm for the airline.
‘‘We anticipate delays and cancellations may continue across the coming few days and we are actively working to reduce the disruption to our customers as much as possible.’’
Air New Zealand has reinstated its flexibility policy, which allows customers of cancelled flights to hold the value of their fare in credit for 12 months from the time they requested their credit or change in flight.
Auckland Airport has had to navigate flight cancellations since late last week, when 10 inbound flights from Sydney were delayed amidst stormy weather conditions.
Two days later, travellers flying from Auckland to Christchurch were left twiddling their thumbs when a scheduled flight due to leave at 4pm was cancelled due to crew sickness.
Jetstar also cancelled its JQ233 flight to Christchurch, which was scheduled to depart at 1.55pm. That was because a pilot became unwell, a spokesperson said.
Members of a Northland gymnastics team, heading to Invercargill for the Gymnastics Nationals event for which preparatory sessions begin today, were caught up in delays. ‘‘They had return flights booked with their journey commencing this morning [yesterday], and were advised yesterday by Air NZ that their Auckland to Christchurch leg of the journey had been cancelled,’’ grandmother Julie Day said.
‘‘Two of the parents struggled for many hours to find a way to get there, and have ended up with a journey taking them two days, which will include sleeping at Wellington airport overnight tonight [yesterday]. This included waiting for over 90 minutes to get through to the Air NZ call centre, only to be cut off just as they were getting through.’’
This left them no option but to book any flights they could online, at extra expense, without knowing if their original bookings would be refunded.
Day said several members of the team had to wait until 8.30pm for a flight to Wellington from Auckland, after arriving from Whanga¯ rei earlier in the morning.
They then have to sleep overnight at Wellington airport, and leave on a 7am flight to Christchurch, from where they will then drive to Invercargill.
‘‘Several members of the team will miss important training sessions before they compete from Wednesday onwards,’’ she said.
Elyse Pryor was due to fly home to Christchurch on Thursday afternoon with her boyfriend, Sam Irvine, but she was told their flight was cancelled in an email.
‘‘It’s quite annoying as I’m supposed to be working on Friday and Saturday, plus Sam and I are supposed to be volunteering at our youth group on Friday night.’’
The cancelled flights also disrupted a national water polo tournament in Christchurch, which took place over the weekend.
Of yesterday’s cancelled flights, seven were with Air New Zealand and two were with Jetstar.
Many of the flights were codeshare arrangements – five with Singapore Airlines, two with Qantas and one with Virgin Atlantic.