02 Feb 2023
Auckland Emergency Management on weather outlook, welfare assistance and waste management. Video / NZHerald
Air New Zealand has announced more flights to help bring up to 9000 passengers who found themselves stranded overseas when Auckland International Airport was flooded after heavy rain over the weekend.
Recovery flights have been added to the Samoa and Japan schedule from today, with an extra flight from Apia due to arrive in Auckland this evening.
An additional service has been announced from Narita, Japan, due to leave for New Zealand on Monday, local time.
The airline said the recovery flights are part of a wider effort to add more seats in order to bring those affected home more quickly.
Previously, passengers were facing having to stay overseas longer - in some cases until the end of the month.
Auckland Airport was closed after flooding on Friday night. Photo / Courtney Whitaker
Air NZ’s Leanne Geraghty said they had pulled out all the stops to get people in the air and back home; including redirecting cargo flights to pick up passengers instead, calling in favours with alliance partners, used larger aircraft and adjusted schedules wherever possible.
“Our teams have worked tirelessly to enable further capacity to be added so we can get more people from Samoa and Japan - which are two ports that remain in high demand with limited options.
“These extra flights will be a relief to those needing to get home.”
Auckland International Airport was forced to stop all international flights on Friday evening and early Saturday after the sudden downpour that hit the city caused massive flooding inside and outside the terminal.
Passengers due to leave Auckland were left stranded, while those due to board flights overseas faced cancellations.
The 9000 people affected has resulted in one of the airline’s biggest rebookings in its history - effectively two customers rebooked every minute since late Saturday evening, Geraghty said.
So far, 8700 customers had been rebooked and work is under way to rebook the remaining 300 passengers affected.
Auckland Airport still repairing damaged systems
“When this is done, we’ll be turning our focus to responding to the other outstanding queries we’ve received and supporting all our valued customers.”
Things are effectively back to normal at Auckland Airport’s domestic terminal. However, the international terminal is still in recovery mode, as repairs continue.
Geraghty said many systems at the airport were still not yet operational and volunteers from across the business had been brought in to help with check-in and baggage.
