(File image) Photo: Unsplash / Douglas Bagg
Air New Zealand is blaming unusually strong winds for the delayed arrival of its flagship non-stop flight from New York to Auckland as well as the direct Auckland to New York route.
NZ1 took off two hours late from JFK airport in New York on 22 September.
In a statement to Checkpoint, the airline said the plane would make a short stop in Nadi to refuel. Meanwhile, a replacement crew is now en route to Fiji to take over from the current crew and bring passengers to Auckland.
Air New Zealand said all 210 customers were told of the delay before departure and they had intentionally left seats unsold to manage weight.
Chief operational integrity and safety officer David Morgan said there was also no cargo onboard the route.
"The forecast headwinds en route are significantly stronger than usual - stronger than our 12 months of modelling and other data stretching back much further," Morgan said.
"Refuelling in Nadi is our standard contingency plan for these circumstances and has also been used in previous years for other routes on our network. While these sorts of headwinds are very rare, they do happen, and we've planned for it," he said.
"Weather on the eastern seaboard of the United States has caused delays to a number of airlines, including the arrival of NZ2 into JFK this afternoon."
On Monday, the airline's first inaugural direct flight from New York landed in Auckland but without 65 passenger bags, so it could meet load limits.
Air New Zealand said weather conditions meant they could not bring all the bags on the flight.