Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s flight in Vietnam grounded due to paperwork mess up, one too many believed to be on board

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s flight between Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam was delayed for 45 minutes due to a paper work mistake which suggested one to many had boarded the flight.

Ardern left for her three-day trip to Vietnam on Monday after wrapping up her time at the East Asia Summit [ESA] in Cambodia.

She is leading a trade delegation in the country.

RNZ’s business editor Gyles Beckford told RNZ that there was a “kerfuffle” on the flight between Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City after officials concluded there was an unaccounted person on board.

“So we sat there for about 40 odd minutes as they were literally going ‘one, two, three, four, five’ then getting the passenger lists out and ticking off the names and looking at tickets,” said Beckford.

“It turns out that they had two lists and one didn’t tell you of the other. So a minor thing but a 45 minute delay.”

The Prime Minister’s flight landed just before midnight, local time.

Officials, media and business people were travelling with Ardern on the flight.

So far in Vietnam, Ardern has had had a colourful meeting the Communist Party leadership of Vietnam - a day that ended being taken on a garden walk at night by Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh to pick pomelos, a fruit Vietnam exports to New Zealand.

Ardern was welcomed to Hanoi with a military parade outside the bright yellow Presidential Palace, as flag-waving people and students lined the streets of her route.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern picks a pomelo in the orchard with Vietnamese Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh. Photo / supplied

The business delegation part of Ardern’s visit to Vietnam started with a demonstration of Fonterra’s bone density testing machine.

The company claims to have tested more than 100,000 Vietnamese – part of its push to encourage the uptake of dairy in Vietnam.

However, Ardern was less than keen to have her own bone density tested – instead leaving the job to Agriculture Minister Damien O’Connor.

After another day of business events in Ho Chi Minh City, Ardern will go to Bangkok for the Apec Summit.

However, even as Ardern goes about Vietnam making her post-Covid “New Zealand is open for business” pitch, Covid-19 was circling.

Ardern did a rapid antigen test after news that Cambodian PM Hun Sen had tested positive two days after they met, while he was at the G20 summit.

Following the ESA, Ardern said the meetings of the leaders were “deliberate and very sober” as they discussed issues from inflation to Ukraine and Myanmar.

She also told other leaders that it was time to think about what came next in dealing with Myanmar’s military junta.

Although the leaders’ speeches to the EAS are delivered behind closed doors, Ardern chose to release hers publicly afterward.

In it, she sets out the issues that most concern her – the top of which was Myanmar’s military regime after the 2021 coup, the violence it was using and especially the imposition of death sentences.

“They are morally wrong and it is a stain on our region.”