Virgin Australia passengers were forced to bed down at Queenstown airport on Easter weekend after their flight was cancelled with no replacement options.
Passengers returning to Sydney from New Zealand on Saturday evening instead had to sleep in the airport after an engineering issue delayed Virgin flight VA162.
The sleeping bags provided to Virgin Australia customers at the Queenstown, New Zealand airport.
As some passengers were offloaded so the plane could operate under weight restrictions, the Virgin crew is understood to have reached its maximum allowable duty hours, which forced the airline to cancel the flight. Under Civil Aviation Safety Authority rules, there are limits to the number of hours a crew can work.
“The safety of our guests and crew is always our highest priority,” a spokesperson for Virgin said.
“We sincerely apologise to our guests for the disruption to their travel plans.”
Sydney-bound passengers stranded in Queenstown were unable to find accommodation on Saturday night because of the Easter long weekend.
“No accommodation provided or available in Queenstown so 100 people slept on the carpet at the airport,” one affected passenger said via email. “Isn’t that illegal?”
The replacement flight on Sunday was itself delayed, the passenger said. Customers were told they would depart at 1.50pm New Zealand time, but the flight didn’t leave until 5.20pm.
The passenger said: “The airline has such a skeletal staff here in NZ it is entirely incapable of dealing with these delays.”
Virgin Australia’s guest compensation policy says that in case of a cancelled service, the airline will switch the passenger to the next available Virgin Australia flight “without charge”.
The Virgin passengers were stranded at Queenstown Airport.
“If we cannot make suitable alternative arrangements, you may request a travel credit or a refund of the price you paid for your impacted flight.”
The Queenstown flight debacle is the second glitch for Virgin this month.
On April 10, the airline was forced to offer refunds to 61,000 customers who were overcharged after an error was discovered in the company’s pricing systems. The error was found as Virgin tested an upgrade of its booking and ticketing system.
Virgin is the lone major domestic competitor to Qantas (and Qantas-owned Jetstar).
Last year, Virgin Australia made its first profit in over a decade, as the company – majority owned by Bain Capital – as it prepares to list on the share market.
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