Wild weather grounds and delays Air NZ flights to regional cities

Wild weather is leading Air NZ to cancel or delay numerous flights into and out of regional cities and interrupting school holiday plans for families.

The routes affected involved the airline's propeller planes, with customers likely to be forced to deal with delays and cancellations until Sunday.

"Wind, rain and fog across New Zealand is causing significant disruption to regional turbo-prop services across the Air New Zealand network this school holiday weekend," the airline said.

Wellington, New Plymouth and Nelson are currently the worst affected airports, while Auckland, Whangārei, Kerikeri, Hamilton, Tauranga, Rotorua, Gisborne and Timaru are also impacted by weather conditions.

"Multiple regional turbo-prop services have been cancelled or significantly delayed this morning and this disruption is likely to impact the schedule for much of the day and into Sunday," Air NZ said.

It is offering customers facing disruptions the chance to jump on to road transportation instead where possible.

It was also scheduling extra flights tomorrow to ferry customers to their destinations at the earliest possible time.

Jet services, meanwhile, are currently operating largely as normal, with some delays into and out of Auckland.

Customers booked to travel domestically today are advised to keep an eye on the Air New Zealand arrivals and departures page for the most up-to-date flight information.

Customers who no longer need to travel have the option to transfer to another flight within 72 hours or hold their fare value in credit for up to 12 months to be used on a future flight.

Customers can do this themselves using the company's website if they wish.

They can also call the airline but Air NZ said wait times were long.

"Customers are asked to avoid calling unless absolutely necessary," it said.

Travellers already at airports are encouraged to speak to a member of the Air New Zealand team.