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Foggy Wellington delays travellers
Up to five thousand air travellers had their plans disrupted by low-lying fog around Wellington Airport – for the 18th day this year – that forced 50 flights to be cancelled at the weekend.
The fog that rolled in on Saturday remained yesterday, with two consecutive days of delays reaching crunch point yesterday morning as thousands of travellers keen to get home for Christmas arrived at airport check-in counters to find no planes were moving.
Air New Zealand spokesman Mike Tod said flights resumed late yesterday morning and by late afternoon the backlog had been cleared.
However, passengers on a Qantas flight from Sydney spent almost three hours stranded on the Auckland airport tarmac, forbidden from leaving the aircraft, after their flight was unable to land in fogbound Wellington.
Flight QF47 was diverted on Saturday after the pilot said he did not have enough fuel to circle Wellington airport and wait for low cloud to clear. The roundabout trip eventually landed at Wellington, more than four hours late, at 6.30pm – and after the exasperated Boeing 737 captain had told passengers to “drink the plane dry” to compensate for the inconvenience.
A passenger said the flight went to Auckland, where passengers were told they would be bussed to the terminal to wait before the flight tried to return to Wellington. But nothing eventuated and the passengers were left in the dark.
Qantas spokeswoman Melissa Thompson said the incident was unfortunate. Passengers were unable to disembark at Auckland because there was nowhere to park the plane, with other aircraft also having been diverted.
Colin Patterson
Graham Muldoon
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