Air NZ has made several North Island flight cancellations ahead of the expected impact of cyclone Gabrielle which is due in a few days.
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Air NZ Chief Operational Integrity and Safety Officer Captain David Morgan says the airline is closely monitoring the severity of the incoming storm and is making changes now to ensure the safety of its customers, staff and aircraft.
“We’re doing everything we can to minimise the impact on our schedule, however, our top priority at this time is the safety and wellbeing of our customers and our people,” says Captain Morgan.
“Part of the preparation involves making changes ahead of the expected impact of the cyclone, so we can reposition crew and move our regional turboprop aircraft to hangars or ports where they won’t be at risk of high winds. We’d like to thank customers for their understanding if their plans are impacted.”
“Given that this a constantly changing event, customers should prepare for further flight cancellations. We’ll provide further updates to customers directly via the Air New Zealand app and post updates on our travel alerts page. We ask customers to refrain from calling our contact centre as we’re experiencing a high volume of calls.”
The following schedule changes have been made
- All flights to or from Kerikeri and Whangarei between midday Sunday and Tuesday morning are cancelled
- Last flights into Hamilton and Tauranga on Sunday night are cancelled
- All turboprop flights to, from or through Auckland, Hamilton and Tauranga from midday tomorrow through to midday Monday are cancelled
- Customers eligible for a refund will be advised directly.
These schedule adjustments will cause significant flow on effects while the airline works through getting customers on those services to their original destinations and crew and planes back where they need to be. This may take a few days to recover.
Advice for customers
“We understand that many of our customers will be affected by this emergency, and we want to assure them that we’re here to help,” says Captain Morgan.
The airline is advising those with non-urgent travel between Sunday 12 February and Friday 17 February 2023 make use of the flexibility policy. Customers can either hold their fare in credit for 12 months or rebook in the same class of travel between Sunday 12 February 2023 and Wednesday 22 February 2023 without fare difference, penalty or service fees.
- The AirNZ app is the easiest way for customers to stay up to date with flight details and changes
- Most customers can self-serve via the Manage Booking tab on the Air New Zealand website
- As the contact centre is experiencing extremely high call volumes, we ask that only those with travel over the next 24 hours contact us directly
- The airline’s travel alerts page has the most up to date information on operating flights - our contact centre team do not have any more information than this
- If you’re flight is cancelled, please do not travel to the airport – staff at the airport are unable to rebook customers
Customers who booked through a travel agent or third-party online agent should contact them directly about making changes to their bookings or credit validity.
Air New Zealand would like to thank customers for their patience and support while it works through these significant disruptions. The airline is focused on managing these impacts for our customer and will not be able to provide specific flight details or impacted customer numbers at this time
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