Stranded pregnant Kiwi: 'I need to get home to have my baby'

An expectant New Zealander stranded in South Africa is in a race against time to get home before it's too late for her to travel by air, pinning hopes on boarding a flight later today.

It's proving a stressful month for mum-to-be Kimberly Aukett, who is 27 weeks pregnant and desperate to return to Napier to deliver her baby, due in November.

After a string of setbacks in recent weeks, including being bumped off an international flight just hours before it was due to leave, Aukett and South African-born fiance Wyatt Murphy, 25, have their bags packed after being told in the past 12 hours they have seats on a flight that leaves today.

For the mum-to-be with a shrinking window to get out of the country before the birth of the couple's first child, the situation has been growing increasingly desperate by the day.

"I need to get back to New Zealand before I am cut off from flying so I can get proper medical care and deliver my baby.

"Time is running out. I don't think I've been this stressed in my whole life.

"I'm willing to do anything to get home," the 38-year-old said.

The pair are hours away from leaving the tiny Johannesburg apartment they have been sharing with Murphy's father and making the exhausting 66-hour flight through Doha and Sydney back to Auckland.

"I'm still a bit cautious about believing it as anything could happen in the next 14 hours before we need to be at the Qatar Embassy in Pretoria," said Aukett.

"I've been rushing madly to get transit permissions for New South Wales and hope they are approved in time."

The couple, who began a romance more than a year ago, had started planning to leave the African continent and make their family in the Hawke's Bay months ago.

But Aukett reached breaking point this week when their first international flight from Doha to Auckland through Melbourne was cancelled and they were bumped from a second through Sydney just hours before it was due to leave.

Up until yesterday no seats were available on a commercial flights until the middle of next month and no guarantee the couple would get home on these later flights.

Faced with the daunting prospect of not getting back to New Zealand within a rapidly shrinking travel window, the pregnant project manager said she saw a charter mercy flight as her only chance of leaving the African continent.

The mum-to-be made an impassioned plea to the Government and transport authorities to allow the chartered repatriation flight from Johannesburg to land here with 185 Kiwis and visa holders on board.

She said the Air Zimbabwe Boeing, was on the tarmac in South Africa waiting to get the green light from New Zealand authorities.

"The Maple Aviation flight still needs help getting approvals to bring hundreds of people home to New Zealand. I hope we can still help them with some publicity and pressure," she said.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade has given no indication the flight will get the necessary clearance.

"We have a responsibility to New Zealand to make sure the demand on our managed isolation system does not exceed the safe level of capacity," said a spokesperson.

At this stage the focus was on working with commercial or government flights to bring home New Zealanders in an ordered and manageable way.

Measures to smooth the demand for managed isolation included a rolling two-week quota on the number of people airlines could bring home.

"The Government has worked collaboratively with airlines operating commercial flights into New Zealand to amend their licenses to enable the quota to be introduced," said the spokesperson.

"The system aligns demand with supply, as increasing numbers of New Zealanders seek to return home from round the globe."

So far this month the couple, who struck up a romance when Aukett stopped in the African continent to visit friends last June, have been bumped off two commercial flights to New Zealand because of Australia's tough new entry restrictions.

They had booked a flight on August 10 from Doha via Melbourne to New Zealand, but that was cancelled because of the Victorian capital's covid lockdown.

The flight was changed for August 14, this time passing through Sydney.

But just hours before the flight was due to leave South Africa the Kiwi woke to find an email at 1am from Qatar Airways telling her she wouldn't be able to fly home on the day they were meant to leave.

She said that was easily the lowest point of her life.

"It felt like there was no way we were going to get home," said Aukett, in tears.

"You build up the whole week. We'd already had our flights cancelled on Sunday because of Melbourne and you're anxious that whole week and waiting. We had been so excited and thinking we'd done it and we were there and then we wake up and it's panic stations.

"I was absolutely devastated."

New Zealander Kimberly Aukett and her fiance Wyatt Murphy August 2020. Kimberly who is 27-weeks pregnant is stuck in South Africa after ebing kicked-off a flight home at the last moment Picture su

With no more seats on either commercial or repatriation flights available until next month Aukett feared it would be too late to board any flight because of restrictions on pregnant woman flying beyond early third trimester.

"We're pushing it. The cut-off for international flights is around 33 weeks," she said.

She was also worried there was no guarantee she'd be bumped off again at the last minute for a third time.

"I honestly think the chartered flight is our only chance of getting back to New Zealand," she told the Herald before the airline contacted her late yesterday.

"We are just awaiting the Immigration Office in New Zealand to vet all passengers and then once this has been done, the Ministry of Transport to approve the flight landing in New Zealand."

She said an officially sanctioned repatriation flight from South Africa planned for September was not all the way to New Zealand and travellers needed to secure a connecting flight with commercial airlines.

"The repatriation flight is from Johannesburg to Doha and then from Doha going to wherever in the world on commercial flights. There's no full repatriation flight from Johannesburg for people who have the right to live in New Zealand. We have to go a roundabout route.

"While there is a repatriation flight to Doha in September we might get bumped off again and I can't risk that," she said.

Meanwhile, she said everything in her pregnancy was going well to date.

"It's the one thing that's going okay at the moment."