Delayed China Southern flight finally departs

A China Southern Airlines flight delayed twice in as many days has finally departed Auckland Airport.

Police were called after an angry group of passengers confronted airline staff over the 48-hour delay to the flight bound for Guangzhou. It is understood engineering problems were discovered in the Boeing 787 Dreamliner.

Despite the publicity disaster the airline is mulling over whether to publicly apologise.

Southern China Airline's New Zealand marketing and commercial manager Blair Haeata said airline staff would have a meeting in the next few hours to decide how to proceed.

The flight finally departed at 10am today.

Video posted by one of the passengers, Alex Lee, showed an angry group yelling at one of the airline's staffers.

Posting on the video, Lee wrote "A mob is activating..its unacceptable...2nd delay/cancellation in consecutive days".

Lee said the drama began when people arrived for a full flight scheduled to leave at 10am on Sunday. Eventually the passengers were told to come back the following day and given hotel rooms for the night.

The passengers returned to the airport yesterday morning for the rescheduled flight at 11am.

But 11am came and went with no announcement while the passengers waited. That's when, as Lee called it, the mob "activated".

"I don't know if you've been to a Guangzhou dumpling restaurant, but if you have, you know the Chinese can get loud and rowdy," he said.

"Kids were agitated, their parents were stressed and tired and there had been no notice of delay. They all began yelling over each other, demanding information."