Since flooding brought international services to a halt at Auckland Airport (AKL), Air New Zealand has worked tirelessly to bring home around 9,000 passengers stranded overseas. As it gets closer to completing this impressive feat, it has now added extra flights to Japan and Samoa to clear more of the backlog.

The Dreamliners to the rescue

The first of those ended successfully when 300 passengers on Air New Zealand flight NZ6055 landed at Auckland Airport this afternoon. The six-year-old Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner, registered ZK-NZJ with MSN 37966, departed Samoa's Apia Faleolo International Airport (APW) at 14:25 and took 3:33 hours to cover the 2,884 kilometers (1,792 miles), landing at AKL at 17:58. After around four hours on the ground in Auckland, it will depart on Flight NZ10 to Honolulu and return overnight.

Air New Zealand (ANZ) is also operating an additional 787-9 Dreamliner service from Japan's Tokyo Narita International Airport (NRT). It will operate on February 6th and return another 300 passengers earlier than expected. These recovery flights are part of the airline's broader efforts to add more seats and get disrupted passengers home as soon as possible.

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Even an A380 has been called up

They are in addition to the extra flights from Los Angeles, Niue, Fiji, and the upsizing to the Singapore Airlines Airbus A380, previously announced. ANZ chief customer officer Leanne Geraghty described what the airline has been doing to get stranded customers to their final destination.

"We've pulled out all the stops to get our customers in the air. We've redirected cargo flights to pick up passengers, called in favours from our Alliance partners, used larger aircraft and adjusted our schedule wherever possible to make it happen.

Our teams have worked tirelessly to enable further capacity to be added so we can get more people from Samoa and Japan, which are two ports that remain in high demand with limited options - these flights will be a relief to those needing to get home."

The airline is contacting all disrupted customers in Samoa and Japan as it works through the backlog. There are around 300 customers not yet booked, and Geraghty said these are now the airline's priority. Once completed, the focus will be "responding to the other outstanding queries we've received" from customers.

ANZ's domestic schedules are running as planned, but the international terminal is still in the throes of working back to full capacity. She explained that "repairs are going well," but many systems are not yet operational, causing issues for customers and staff at check-in. Adding that,

"We have brought in volunteers from across the business to assist with check-in and baggage, and we appreciate everyone's patience and understanding as we work through recovering from this unprecedented event."

With domestic operations running at high demand, ANZ is getting the most out of its fleet of widebody aircraft in this recovery operation. Its 14 Boeing B787-9 Dreamliners are all in service, with the one used today from Samoa configured to carry 302 passengers. It has a three-class seating layout, including 18 in business class, 21 in premium economy, and 263 in the economy cabin.

Do we have any readers who have been on one of these extra flights? Please tell us about it in the comments.

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  Air New Zealand

  IATA/ICAO Code:

  NZ/ANZ

  Airline Type:

  Full Service Carrier

  Hub(s):

  Auckland Airport, Christchurch Airport, Wellington Airport

  Year Founded:

  1965

  Alliance:

  Star Alliance

  CEO:

  Greg Foran

  Country:

  New Zealand

  Region:

  Oceania