The lack of air traffic controllers has sparked frustration at Hawke's Bay Airport as navigational service provider Airways struggles to recruit new staff.
The airport has a service ability contract with Airways, meaning the control tower is meant to be manned during a set time.
Just two Saturday's ago Hawke's Bay Airport chief executive Stuart Ainslie had to make a call to hold a Jetstar flight on the ground due to the constraining traffic control hours.
"That particular flight had to be disembarked on the ground and it couldn't fly out, as it was basically the end of the night," he said.
I had to make that call ultimately, but it's not actually the airport's responsibility. I was asked if we could let the aircraft go and I said 'well I can't make that call' because once it gets into the air, it's an airspace management issue, which is why we have a manned tower in the first place."
Ainslie said Airways had an ongoing resourcing challenge which was exacerbated by the lack of trained controllers.
"We've started to elevate our concerns about it and one of the things we've spoken to Airways about is the service level agreement, they've made a number of commitments to us about increasing the level of resource through training and bringing new people in, it's just going slower than we anticipated - nearly seven months now.
Airways Air Traffic Services, Tim Boyle said contingency airspace procedures have been in place for Hawkes Bay Airport since mid-December, due to staff unavailability at the Napier air traffic control tower.
"These continue to be in place for at least one shift per day on the current published roster through to February," he said.
"Airlines are able to continue to safely fly under these procedures, which are agreed with them and approved by the CAA. We are working very closely with our airline and airport customers in Napier, who are notified of contingency procedures well in advance to allow them to plan their schedules.
Boyle said contingency procedures may introduce some delays for airlines, but there was a possibility "that a number of expected and unexpected circumstances may occur at once, and these are difficult to cover at short notice. We have bought in additional staff from other units to assist with cover over this time.
"The nature of air traffic control means it's not easy to find and recruit the right people for the job. We are looking for people with a unique set of skills – this is the ability to visualise and react to situations in the right kind of way.
A lot of different people will have the capabilities, we just don't always see enough of them."