Fog wreaks havoc with Hawke's Bay flights

Rolling fog around Bluff Hill and other areas in Napier has caused flight delays for passengers at Hawke's Bay Airport. Photo File

Low-hanging fog caused chaos for air travellers yesterday, with some Air New Zealand passengers taking 24 hours to get home from Auckland as a result.

In some cases, Air New Zealand passengers flew over Hawke's Bay twice, only to be turned back to Auckland on both occasions.

One Havelock North resident, who did not wish to be named, yesterday was back at Auckland Airport a day after first flying out of there.

"It's a debacle. The first flight was 4.30pm (Wednesday) to Napier, we flew round three times and then they canned all the flights since then. Obviously, the flow on from that is pretty close to a disaster.

"Yesterday, we flew in, tried to land once and then flew back again. The night before we tried to land three times and came back again."

"I should have been at work, so it has been a bit of a debacle to say the least."

An Air NZ spokeswoman confirmed Flight NZ5025 from Auckland to Napier returned to Auckland this morning due to fog in Napier.

Although a pre-planned reduction in services meant the airport's control tower was unmanned until lunchtime on Tuesday, the spokeswoman said she was unaware of any issues around the control tower yesterday.

Yesterday's issues were the latest in a series of flight disruptions for air travellers in and out of Hawke's Bay.

On Tuesday, a flight from Napier to Wellington was delayed by 10 minutes while pilots carried out additional pre-departure processes as the aerodrome was under air traffic control contingency procedures.

Last week, the control tower copped criticism from Napier MP Stuart Nash, who hit out on Twitter after his flight from Hawke's Bay Airport was delayed.

He claimed the late departure - the second in as many weeks - was because an air traffic controller was late for work.

Airways, which operates the airport's control tower confirmed the delay was down to an unexpected staff shortage on that occasion.