Concerns over Auckland Airport disruptions going into holiday period

Passengers outside the departures area at Auckland International Airport. Photo: RNZ / Marika Khabazi

Massive disruption at Auckland International Airport on Wednesday has raised concerns about how the airport will cope over the holiday period.

Board of Airline Representatives executive director Cath O'Brien told Morning Report a network outage meant airlines had to use manual processes to check in customers, which created long queues and saw flights cancelled or delayed, and the baggage system was not working either.

Some passengers told RNZ they were tired, frustrated, and hungry after queuing from 3am on Wednesday. The issue was resolved around 9.40am, with staff on hand with snacks and water, as well as support for parents travelling with young children.

O'Brien said there was a major issue with the baggage system, with at least 20 failures at Auckland Airport within the last month.

"Yesterday was a hugely difficult day for customers out at the airport and I'm really sorry that people had to kind of live through that.

"It's a really busy time of the year... Auckland Airport is working on an upgrade of many things. They have chosen to upgrade the system as we head into the period. And unfortunately, it has been much less stable than I'm sure they or we would like."

O'Brien said the baggage system failing so often was causing "quite some difficulty", as the bags have had to go to a different place to be screened then manually moved to the plane.

"I think the airport is working hard to, you know, resolve things. And you know, we've all got our fingers crossed.

"But at this point, I think we need to start planning for the extra resource that we will need to get through the Christmas season. If this keeps happening, and because it's happened some 20 times over the last month, it's probably going to keep happening in the next few weeks."

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