Air New Zealand will resume flights ahead of schedule following Cyclone Gabrielle, which in the last few hours caused storms and flooding in the north of New Zealand, the country’s most populated region. The situation caused widespread disruption to air operations and affected the schedule of the country’s largest airline.
In a press release, the airline said today that it will continue to reschedule the bookings of around ten thousand passengers on international flights affected by the disruptions, «based on current weather predictions».
Services at Auckland International Airport (AKL), the country’s largest air terminal and Air New Zealand’s main base of operations, will begin to resume from the morning of Tuesday 14 February. For its part, domestic turboprop operations will resume from the afternoon of the same day.
According to the information, eleven domestic flights have been added to speed up the rescheduling of affected customers’ bookings. In addition, the company assured that more connections will be added in the coming hours.
Cyclone Gabrielle’s impact on Air New Zealand flights
The airline cancelled a total of 509 flights as a result of the cyclone. According to the latest information, some 6.500 customers were still to be re-accommodated earlier today.
Leanne Geraghty, Air New Zealand’s Chief Customer and Sales Officer, said the airline is working to relocate all passengers. She remarked the changes are already underway. «Customers are currently being rebooked onto the next available service to give them certainty they have a flight booked», she said.
«As we did during the Auckland floods, we will add larger aircraft on different routes, work with our Star Alliance partners, convert cargo operations to passenger flights and add additional services, where possible, where we need them most», Geraghty assured.
Air New Zealand cancelled all flights to and from Kerikeri and Whangarei scheduled between yesterday and Tuesday morning. It also suspended all turboprop operations to and from Auckland, Hamilton, Tauranga and Taupo during the same time period.
Intercontinental flights due to arrive in Auckland were cancelled today. However, services from New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Singapore were completed. On the other hand, it suspended all departures from Auckland. In addition, all flights in Tasmania and the Pacific Islands scheduled for today were also cancelled.
The impact of the contingency will be felt over the next few days as the airline works to schedule crews and equipment where they are needed to overcome the consequences of the widespread cancellations.
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