Chaos erupts at Queenstown Airport with travellers stranded

Nightmare scenes have descended upon a busy airport today as travellers struggle to get home due to flight disruptions, with queues running out the door.

There have been chaotic scenes at Queenstown Airport today as travellers struggle to get home after flight disruptions at the end of the school holidays.

Queues ran out the door of the airport as Air New Zealand struggled to clear a backlog of flights, the NZ Herald reports.

Some travellers say they have been trying to get home for days, and have struggled to find accommodation because the resort town was at capacity.

Air NZ has been battling a “perfect storm” of high demand during school holidays, staff sickness because of Covid-19, and weather-related disruptions. Up to 130 flights were cancelled on Thursday and Friday because of stormy conditions.

The airline warned at the beginning of the July school holidays that higher-than-usual employee sickness and bad weather could cause delays.

It said today it is putting on larger aircraft and adding additional flights to help customers get home.

It is also encouraging people booked to travel on affected flights to transfer to another date.

Tony Versey, from Auckland, said he and his wife were originally scheduled to fly home from Queenstown on Thursday night.

That flight was cancelled and he was offered a Friday morning flight but he told Air New Zealand staff that he was relatively flexible and was rescheduled until this morning.

When he arrived at Queenstown Airport at 8am this morning, there was a queue out the door and the self check-in machines were not working. After an hour’s wait, he discovered their flight had been cancelled again and they were directed to the information desk.

“Of course, now there is already a queue halfway down the concourse, literally. It took us I think three and a half hours to finally get to the front of that queue.”

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People queue at Queenstown airport to try and rebook seats after flights were cancelled. Picture: James Allan/NZ Herald

They were given the option of bussing to Dunedin, then flying to Wellington and on to Auckland tomorrow – with the caveat that the flights may be affected by Covid-19. They took a second option, to fly directly home on Tuesday night.

“I’m not feeling super confident that will even happen,” he said.

Versey said they had been well looked after by the airline, with a $NZD250 (AUD$225 accommodation voucher and a $90 food voucher each day and $270 in travel vouchers. Staff had been friendly despite the intense pressure on them, he said.

Another traveller from Auckland said she was stranded at the airport with her partner and two children after their flight was cancelled.

“Kids are due back at high school tomorrow, there’s no accommodation, no rental cars, we’ve been here an hour and a half – still waiting for some help.”

It was not just Queenstown being affected by flight disruptions.

James Gaunt, a businessman from Auckland, said he was struggling to get staff back from Christchurch. Two of his staff had flights cancelled and he had been unable to find new flights for them.

“One has a child to attend to tomorrow, and they’ve been booted off, and they’ve got no ticket for the next couple of days.”

Air NZ’s website shows there are no available direct flights on that route tomorrow and flights for Tuesday were fast selling out.

Gaunt questioned why the airline continued to schedule a large number of flights only to cancel many of them with little notice. He estimated that 30 to 40 per cent of flights were being cancelled each day.

“Every day it is the same. They are selling tickets for every hour to Christchurch and back,” he said.

“But there are so many flights cancelled every day. I’m just trying to get staff back at home with their families – it’s a nightmare. I’ve got no idea what I’m going to do for them.”

A plane of Air New Zealand takes off from a runway in Queenstown Airport. Picture: iStock

Air New Zealand chief customer and sales officer Leanne Geraghty said the airline was putting on larger aircraft and adding additional flights to help get customers to where they need to be as school holidays drew to a close after a week of disruption and delays.

Winter weather and crew sickness was continuing to hamper Air New Zealand’s efforts to get customers home.

The airline had been forced to cancel about 20 of its 470-odd flights today – one of its busiest days of the school holidays.

Geraghty said the good news was the backlog from cancellations related to Thursday’s wild weather in Wellington had been cleared.

“As part of efforts, Air New Zealand is putting on a 300-seater 787 from Auckland-Christchurch-Auckland tomorrow. There will be additional flights out of Christchurch to Queenstown and Wellington today and tomorrow to help customers return home.

“Unfortunately, we’re still experiencing a perfect storm of a very busy end to the school holidays, with ongoing weather and crew sickness causing disruptions. Due to these rolling disrupts, recovery might take several days, and we’re working through potential alternative transport options for customers and encouraging those with non-urgent travel to push their fare in credit.”

Air New Zealand advised customers to sign up to the airline’s Travel Alerts service and consult its Arrivals and Departures page for up-to-date information.

The airline strongly encouraged those booked to travel on affected flights to transfer their travel to another date by managing their booking online.

Customers booked between now and August 31 can hold the value of their fare in credit for 12 months, from the time they requested their credit.

This story originally appeared on the NZ Herald and was reproduced with permission.