Air traffic controllers Airways NZ have admitted a “vendor” cited as being linked to a major outage that led to multiple planes not being able to land does not exist.
It’s now emerged the software which caused the system failure was developed by Airways NZ itself, not an external entity.
Five flights were held in the air during the August 16 outage with other planes grounded on the tarmac.
Airways NZ chief executive James Young was asked on RNZ last month about the software glitch which caused the fault, and if he had spoken to the maker of the software.
“We have significant development capability in-house. We are in discussions with the vendor,” Young told RNZ in August.
“But we just need to take a bit of time to understand exactly what happened.”
The Herald asked Airways on Thursday to disclose who the vendor was and what it had heard back from the vendor since August 16.
On Monday evening, Airways NZ responded.
“This statement was an error on the part of James Young and we have not been in discussion with the vendor as the system is maintained internally by an experienced team of specialist software developers,” a spokesperson said.
They added: “The system has been continually upgraded and maintained internally by Airways.
“This includes keeping pace with all international developments driven by ICAO (International Civil Aviation Organisation), hardware, operating system and software upgrades.”
The chief executive of the Aviation Industry Association, Simon Wallace, told the Herald he was “disappointed” Airways did not clarify at an earlier stage that the system was actually maintained internally.
Young addressed the AIANZ conference last week, but Wallace said the situation wasn’t clarified during that event.
“Indeed, there was no mention of this at the AIANZ conference last week in Wellington and it is only through questions from the media this matter has been clarified.”
Wallace called for independent oversight of Airways NZ to ensure such system failures don’t happen again.
The Herald has asked if Airways NZ thinks it reasonable for the chief executive to provide erroneous information of this nature to the public during media interviews.
It has also asked if Airways NZ thinks it reasonable to not disclose the nature of the error to the AIANZ conference, and to take this long to disclose that the “vendor” does not exist.
The office of James Meager, Associate Minister of Transport, was approached for comment.
Meager’s office sent the request to Simeon Brown, saying the matter “sits in the State-Owned Enterprises portfolio”.
“This is a matter for Airways,” Brown’s press secretary said.
Official Information obtained by the Herald shows a “routine software update” was carried out on the oceanic system on August 6, 10 days before the outage.
However, in the response, Airways NZ said the software update was “not considered to be the cause” of the glitch.
“On top of robust testing throughout the development process, all Airways’ air traffic management system software undergoes software readiness testing prior to release,” a statement released under the OIA said.
The Herald also requested under the OIA a copy of draft findings into the cause of the outage.
This was declined with Airways saying a “thorough investigation” is ongoing and it was important the integrity and effectiveness of the investigation process are maintained.
The admission of erroneous information was made shortly before Airways released its annual results.
The state-owned enterprise reported a net profit after tax of $11.9 million for the year ended June 30.
“Airways will also deliver a dividend of $10m to its government shareholder,” it added today.
“We look forward to continuing to deliver value to New Zealand through the essential service we provide and financial return to our shareholder,” Young said.
New Zealand’s oceanic airspace, known as the Auckland Oceanic flight information region, covers an area almost four times the size of Australia.
The region stretches from the Antarctic to 5 degrees South, and across the southwest Pacific.
But much of that region has virtually no air traffic, or just a few long-haul flights flying at a constant altitude across most of the ocean.
“The software fault was borne out of a process where we shrink the airspace,” Young told the AIANZ conference last week.
“So we effectively go from one overall sector to two sectors.”
One sector is created for the relatively busy part of the zone covering the eastern Tasman Sea and nearby skies.
And the other sector is for the huge but rarely traversed rest of the roughly 30 million sq km region.
But the malfunction on August 16 caused a roughly one-hour outage, and operations were switched to a back-up system.
Airways said its investigation and simulations of the environment at the time of the incident confirmed a software failure.
“The sectorisation process triggered the event. This issue has not been seen with the system before, over many years of operational use,” Airways told the Herald on Tuesday last week.
The disruption irked airlines and led to the AIANZ suggesting compensation be considered.
Massey University School of Aviation chief executive Ashok Poduval last month called the outage an “extremely rare” event.
John Weekes is a business journalist covering aviation. He has previously covered consumer affairs, crime, politics and courts.
Michael Morrah is a senior investigative reporter/team leader at the Herald. He won News Journalist of the Year at the 2025 Voyager Media Awards and has twice been named reporter of the year at the NZ Television Awards.