Chris Hipkins speaks on the National State of Emergency. Video / NZ Herald
Air New Zealand’s restart to flights through Auckland got off to a rocky start with strong winds leading to cancellations and passengers being kept on a plane, apparently after problems positioning an air bridge in gusty conditions.
The airline resumed domestic jet operations from mid-morning today but paused because ofstrong gusts at Auckland Airport. This led to a slew of cancellations as the airline started its second big recovery mission in just over a fortnight.
All domestic and international flights were then suspended, because of high winds.
The airport company said baggage loading and unloading had to pause to protect airport workers.
This caused further chaos throughout the country’s airline network and there were reports of hundreds of people stuck at Queenstown Airport and accommodation is all booked.
Air New Zealand says 592 flights have been affected by Cyclone Gabrielle, disrupting around 35,000 customers across the network.
It warned this afternoon that high winds may prevent the planned resumption of turboprop flights. Flights in and out of New Plymouth, Napier and Gisborne remain suspended because of airport closures and poor weather.
Air New Zealand chief customer and sales officer Leanne Geraghty said the recovery airlift was major for the airline with all parts of the business rebooking passengers.
Leanne Geraghty, Air NZ's chief customer and sales officer. Photo / Brett Phibbs
“All hands [are] on deck rebooking customers and finding alternate solutions.”
While more than 20,000 domestic passengers were relatively easy to rebook - and many were doing it themselves - international journeys were harder.
Of more than 10,000 international passengers affected by Cyclone Gabrielle, around 1700 were still to be re-booked. While some were being told they could face a three-week wait for their flight, it was hoped this would be cut as the airline put bigger planes on some routes and got help from alliance partners. After the January 27 floods, Singapore Airlines used an A380 double-decker to help recover its own schedule and also carry Air New Zealand passengers.
Passengers who faced the longest wait to be rebooked were those travelling between Auckland and Vancouver, Tokyo and Seoul.
Air New Zealand has been under fire for wait times to talk to call centre staff, sometimes stretching for hours. On its travel alerts page today it said the contact centre has been “overwhelmed”.
Geraghty said waiting for hours was not acceptable but international inquiries around bookings could take longer to handle and customers were now calling more frequently seeking reassurance.
She said the number of call centre staff had been doubled to 500 in less than a year and new digital systems coming online soon should speed up passenger inquiries.
The airline was looking to recruit more call centre staff and training had been refined to make sure those starting on domestic travel inquiries were being shifted more quickly to more complex international problems.
Geraghty said the rebuild after the depths of the pandemic had ‘’not been as seamless’' as hoped. ‘’But I do think airlines are building back stronger and better and each of these events provides a learning of how we can do things better and provide a better customer experience and greater operational resilience.’’
While not able to comment on the financial impact of the disruption from Cyclone Gabrielle so soon after the Auckland floods, she said the effect on operations was major and it was difficult to restart quickly, especially when weather was still a factor.
“You might be able to operate an aircraft but you also have to consider what happens once the aircraft is on the ground. Are you able to get customers off safely and have people out in those types of conditions?
“We need to make sure we have aircraft in place, ready to operate once the weather does pass and that includes pilots and crew. We need to ensure that our assets are secured so obviously a huge consideration is where we park our aircraft,” said Geraghty.
Unlike the January floods – in which an Air NZ aircraft knocked out landing lights and then Auckland Airport’s international terminal was inundated – the arrival of Cyclone Gabrielle was well forecast.
“We’ve been able to warn our customers, give them the opportunity to defer travel or change their plans based on the information we have been given at regular intervals across the last week,” she said.
The flood also damaged some infrastructure at the airport, making the recovery more complex.
She urged domestic passengers to ‘’self-serve’' and rebook themselves if they were able.
“For our international customers, please be patient we appreciate you may get a booking that is further out than you would like. But just bear with us over the next 24 to 48 hours as we start to [put on] additional services.”
They would be notified of further changes to their flights.
International customers can now change travel up to March 8 without a change fee, service fee or fare difference applying.
