Fault hits 1000 flyers

Provincial airline Eagle Air expects to have most of its services back up and running today after a fault disrupted the travel of about 1000 passengers yesterday.

The subsidiary of Air New Zealand, which flies to 23 centres from Kaitaia to Wanaka, has apologised to the passengers who were forced to travel by road or rebook flights following the cancellation of about 60 flights.

The flights were grounded after a fault was discovered during routine maintenance on one of its Beech 1900D aircraft.

Eagle Air revealed only that it was an "issue with an undercarriage component".