Yesterday my day started at 4.00am with a day trip planed from my home in Christchurch to Auckland, the city of the sales. We had a a number of management and customer meetings planned, nothing too onerous. We got into our work soon after I arrived at the office at 8.00am with the intention of knocking off mid afternoon so I could make the 5pm flight back home. All was going to plan until we were approx 1000 feet from landing at Christchurch Airport. We aborted the landing and the pilot put his foot down hard and we headed like a rocket back up to a cruising altitude – it was very clear that we were not landing at Christchurch tonight.

The captain soon announced that fog had just closed the airport and visibility was now under the safe operating minimums for landing  – He added (once the groans of disappointment had subsided) that we were now off to Wellington. I travel to Wellington most weeks and a A320 this usually takes 30 mins for this short sector. This caption must have been in a hurry as we landed 20 mins latter!

We taxied to gate 23 at the international terminal, the three company A320 domestic gates were already occupied. After the captain shut down the engines he announced that we now had a choice either we could stay on-board as this plane was returning to Auckland, where the airline had arranged accommodation or we could disembark and take our chances locally. For me, it was a quick and easy decision as the trip back to Auckland would add another hour to my delays and more importantly, I would loose the chance to re-book and with about 20 flights already affected by the Christchurch fog it would now be chaos in the Air NZ schedule. As I also had a place to stay in Wellington – I left the flight in Wellington.

As I correctly predicted, the earliest flight home in the morning with spare seats departed Wellington at 9.30am and the remaining flights were filling up fast with disrupted passengers making alternative arrangements. The 0800 number was engaged and the check in hall queue snaked for miles – I quickly made my way up to the Koru Lounge and 5 minutes latter was booked on the 9.30am flight and departed by cab into the Wellington evening ready or for a good nights sleep.

I fly most weeks so I accept that disruptions are inevitable but I do subscribe to the following to get me through the experience.

1. Don’t get angry – disruptions happen all the time and the weather is no ones fault.
2. Think about the knock on effects – One disrupted flight will mean that there are many others affected in the network.
3. Act quickly – with 100’s of passengers making alternative arrangements at the same time your options will close down fast.
4. Finally, loyalty and status on a full service airline means that you should always get priority.

Back early at the airport the next morning I indulged in a quick Koru lounge coffee fix and waited for my flight home – just another day at the office!