Lightning a possible cause for airport's blackout

Some passengers on flights from Australia found themselves in Hamilton. File photo / Dean Purcell

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Lightning strikes could be to blame for a major outage on Auckland Airport's runway lights.

17 international and domestic flights were diverted to other airports, when the lights failed about 10.30pm, forcing inbound domestic and international flights to divert to other airports.

Landings resumed at 4.20am when a flight from Samoa touched down.

Passengers checked in for flights to Los Angeles and Hong Kong had to rough it in the terminal overnight.

Airways corporation spokeswoman Nikki Hawkey said the fault was fixed in time for early morning flights.

She told Newstalk ZB the cause is being looked into, but that it had happened twice before at Auckland Airport.

"We know... that the amount of cabling at the airport is attractive to lightning."

Ms Hawkey said the damage could have built up over time.

Staff were working working with all the airlines to clear a backlog of passengers. Approximately 300 had to spend the night in Christchurch after being diverted, while others were taken to Hamilton and will be bussed to Auckland.

Some people who checked in for long hauls to the US and Asia won't get away until late this afternoon.

- NEWSTALK ZB, NZPA