Holiday flight hitches as Hawke's Bay Airport control tower struggles

Extra staff have been brought in to avoid further disruptions to holiday flights in and out of Hawke's Bay Airport.

Air traffic controllers Airways NZ has had to bring in extra staff to avoid further disruptions to holiday flights in and out of Hawke's Bay Airport.

Caused by staffing shortages, the disruptions included the cancellation of a last-flight-out to Auckland and international travel turmoil for several passengers.

It also included a weekend diversion of an inward flight to Palmerston North and bussing of passengers to Napier.

While unaware of the diversion, Airways general manager air traffic services Tim Boyle confirmed issues were due to staff "unavailability" at the Napier air traffic control tower.

Contingency airspace procedures will be in place over the next fortnight, including bringing in staff from other units, he said.

"We have prioritised full coverage at the tower to align with airlines' needs during the busy Christmas travel period," he said.

"Our priority is making sure everybody gets to where they need to be safely over the holidays."

"One third of shifts will require some level of contingency cover — between two and six hours for each of these shifts," he said.

Boyle said Airways is adequately staffed to cover foreseeable eventualities, but there is the possibility "that a number of expected and unexpected circumstances may occur at once."

"These are difficult to cover at short notice," he said.

"We have brought in additional staff from other units to assist with cover over this time."

Airway consistently operates at 99.8 per cent service availability across the network, Boyle said, adding: "The level of service we provide at each of our locations is determined by legislation and is agreed with airlines and airports to balance safety, their operational and scheduling requirements and the costs of delivering the service.

"We are continuing to keep the CAA updated on the situation," he said.

It is at least the second time in a few months that "contingency procedures" have had to be used because of staffing issues at the Napier tower, angering regular flyer Clinton Green, who was placed in the "embarrassing" position of having to help rearrange a Philippine Airlines flight at an extra cost of $350 for a guest whose near-full Air New Zealand flight to Auckland on Wednesday night was cancelled.

"It's not good enough, it's terrible," he said.

"Here we are trying to build a bigger airport and attract people to Hawke's Bay, and this happens again.

"We thought this had been sorted out, but Airways is running fairly tight," he said. "They should have more controllers."