Air NZ limits ticket sales in fuel crisis

Air New Zealand has taken the extraordinary step of restricting ticket sales, including halting sales of some international services.

The airline has been taking increasingly disruptive steps to hit the target of cutting its fuel uptake from Auckland Airport to 30 per cent of normal.

Mobil Oil, BP and Z Energy have asked airlines to reduce their fuel consumption to 30 per cent of their normal level while Refining NZ repairs a broken pipeline that pipes jet fuel to the airport.

The 168 kilometre pipeline – which carries jet fuel, petrol and diesel directly from the oil refinery at Marsden Point in Northland to tanks in Wiri, south Auckland – has been out of action since Thursday afternoon after it was damaged, apparently by a digger.

Air NZ also announced that it is cancelling another nine international flights due to take off to Australia, the Pacific and Vietnam today.

Twelve domestic and two international flights scheduled for today had already been cancelled.

‘‘Air New Zealand estimates up to 3000 customers will be impacted by cancellations tomorrow with around 6000 inconvenienced by unexpected schedule changes,’’ the company said in a statement.

‘‘Further disruptions can be expected in coming days.’’

In a bid to help customers which are facing disruption from the cancelled flights, Air New Zealand said it was taking the ‘‘unusual step of restricting ticket sales’’.

Sales of tickets on some international flights have been stopped altogether, although the airline did not say which ones.

Earlier, Air New Zealand said it was flying long-haul planes to the capital purely to refuel.

A Boeing 777-200 would fly to Wellington with only the pilots on board, refuel, then return to Auckland, in preparation for further long-haul operations.

In recent days Air New Zealand’s long-haul flights have been having extra stopovers, primarily in Nadi in Fiji.

On Monday evening Air New Zealand said it was not hitting the 30 per cent target, forcing more flights to be cancelled.

Yesterday’s update shows the problems are broadening, as stopovers in the Pacific deplete supplies there.

Refining NZ – which owns the pipeline and is undertaking the repairs – insisted it was on track to repair the pipeline sometime between midday on Sunday and midday on Tuesday.

Meanwhile petrol is being trucked into Auckland from Marsden Point and Mt Maunganui amid the first signs of an impact on motorists.

Yesterday Z Energy said four of its stations in Auckland had run out of ‘‘premium’’ or 95 octane petrol on Monday afternoon, the result of a deliberate decision to focus on diesel and regular petrol. By 11am the number had grown to 13.

Expert reports from 2012 and 2005 warned that in the event of the pipeline linking the New Zealand Refinery to Auckland being disrupted for more than a week, the industry would be unable to supply enough ground fuel to the city.

But so far supplies have held up, and Andrew McNaught, Mobil’s New Zealand boss who is acting as an industry spokesman, said the ground fuel situation was ‘‘well under control’’.

Asked if there was any sign of panic buying in Auckland, McNaught said he could only speak for Mobil, but there was no sign of it.

‘‘We haven’t seen any change in normal demand patterns.’’

The Government is also considering helping fuel trucks to obtain overweight permits faster so they can carry heavier loads.