Jetstar and Air New Zealand cancels Auckland to Wellington Christmas Day flight

A Jetstar flight from Auckland Airport has been cancelled. Photo / Mark Mitchell

Jetstar and Air New Zealand have cancelled Christmas Day flights, disrupting passengers' plans.

Jetstar Flight JQ261 was scheduled to leave Auckland for Wellington at 3.10 this afternoon.

The flight has now been cancelled, according to Auckland Airport's online arrivals and departures board.

This follows flight delays and a cancellation on Christmas Eve.

Two Emirates/Qantas flights to Auckland from Dubai via Australia have been delayed.

Aucklander Lisa Wright said she and her husband were booked on the Jetstar flight to Wellington.

They were arranging a carpark when they received notice of the cancellation by text from Jetstar and were able to book a flight scheduled to depart at 4pm

"It wasn't too bad a process getting another flight booked," said Wright.

"They had a link in the email that you could click on and it gave you your options. You clicked on that, it didn't work so it took you through to a live-chat page where you interacted with a person; she rebooked us on the next flight.

"It was a bit of inconvenience at Christmas for my husband and I. We're off to see his family in Wellington. Dinner will be delayed a little bit."

A reader who contacted the Herald today said they were finally able to secure a flight up to Auckland, from Palmerston North, for their 85-year-old father - after two cancelled flights with Jetstar.

The reader said they had originally booked a 5.20pm flight on Saturday with the airline. However, they received an email notification at 6.18am that same day that the flight had been cancelled.

The family then rebooked their father on another Jetstar flight, due to depart Palmerston North at 5.20pm yesterday - only for that to be cancelled also, at 1.48pm.

"Managed to get an Air NZ flight for Christmas Eve that got my 85-year-old father up to Auckland in time for Christmas - but at a cost of several hundred dollars," they said.

"Jetstar need a reality check at this time of the year, as they have likely now lost a lot of future customers.''

Other passengers also reported cancellations with Jetstar between Wellington to Auckland.

Jeffrey Hunt contacted the newspaper saying he had spent several hours at the airport trying to get to Wellington for Christmas day.

"Passengers were waiting to depart at the gate well into boarding time when another customer checked the online real-time schedule to see the flight had been delayed from 9am to 12pm.

"The flight was then cancelled altogether with the option of a refund or a flight tomorrow. Nine hours later and waiting for the Air NZ flight. Fingers crossed,'' he said.

A Jetstar spokeswoman blamed today's cancellation on "engineering issues requiring parts to be brought in".

She said most of the passengers from the 3.10pm flight were rebooked onto another, whose departure time was less than an hour later. The new flight for the rest was less than three hours after the original flight's scheduled departure time.

Two Air New Zealand flights were also cancelled today. The airline's Wellington to Hamilton flight at 9.45am this morning was cancelled, as was the 8.05am flight from Hamilton to Wellington.