New Zealand-bound plane flies 13 hours only to land where it took off

Oxman

Well-Known Member
I hope everyone got a vouchered hotel.


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Passengers on an Emirates flight bound for Auckland, New Zealand that left Dubai Friday morning ended up landing back at the same airport where it took off a little more than 13 hours later.

Flight EK448 departed at 10:30 a.m. local time and the pilot turned around nearly halfway into the almost 9,000-mile journey, landing back in Dubai just after midnight Saturday, according to FlightAware and Business Insider.

Auckland Airport was forced to close at the start of the weekend due to severe flooding.

“Auckland Airport has been assessing the damage to our international terminal and unfortunately determined that no international flights can operate today,” the airport said in a statement on Saturday afternoon local time. “We know this is extremely frustrating but the safety of passengers is our top priority.”

On Saturday night local time, after domestic flights resumed, airport officials said that international flights would resume Sunday morning.

Emirates said in a statement to Business Insider, “We regret the inconvenience caused to customers. Emirates will continue to monitor the situation in Auckland and issue updates where required.”
 
I did that on a C17 once…. So I can appreciate how furious the passengers might be right now.


Weird though how there is no alternate and return to Dubai is somehow the cheaper option to flying a quarter of a way around the planet and finding an airport with infrastructure at least in the same or adjacent time zone.


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I did that on a C17 once…. So I can appreciate how furious the passengers might be right now.


Weird though how there is no alternate and return to Dubai is somehow the cheaper option to flying a quarter of a way around the planet and finding an airport with infrastructure at least in the same or adjacent time zone.


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I imagine it is cheaper when you factor crew into the mix.
 
Ultra long haul rest requirements can be very specific. Probably easier to go home and recrew with reserves than try to drop in somewhere else. Also tough to drop a bunch of people off in another country for a day or so
Yep, fair chance more than a few wouldn't be able to get a visa to enter on a divert depending on where a divert would go. SYD would seem to make some sense but the re-crew option was probably a big factor.
 
Ultra long haul rest requirements can be very specific. Probably easier to go home and recrew with reserves than try to drop in somewhere else. Also tough to drop a bunch of people off in another country for a day or so

Yeah, and the only other country in that corner of the world is pretty strict on admittance(Australia).

Is there even another airport in NZ other than AKL that's capable of taking an A380 in anything other than an emergency? Christchurch and Wellington seem like pretty sleepy places judging by Google maps.
 
Yeah, and the only other country in that corner of the world is pretty strict on admittance(Australia).

Is there even another airport in NZ other than AKL that's capable of taking an A380 in anything other than an emergency? Christchurch and Wellington seem like pretty sleepy places judging by Google maps.

Limited options. Wellington doesn't have the runway length (or customs I think). Christchurch has the runway assuming the wind is the right way and the runway is dry. Other than that it's back to to Australia or north to Fiji or the Cook Islands.
 
I can't imagine dumping a widebody full of people unscheduled with no ETD, in that part of the world would be better than just going home. Australia just got over basically locking flight crews in jail for their layover...
 
I was gonna say as a new 17 dude this sounds like my last local, obviously I'm exaggerating but I miss the C-130 and its reasonable sortie lengths so much.

Something about taking off with an expectation for customs clearance…. Then it didn’t happen, so we returned to where we started.

I mean overall it wasn’t the end of the world, but I wasn’t paying for my ride or spending vacation days to be there.


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the gas was close to free
Discounting the greenhouse gas emissions.

Good thing they're doing all those idle-reverse landings and engine washes (which just coincidentally happens to do a lot more for the hot-day margin than fuel burn).
 
Something about taking off with an expectation for customs clearance…. Then it didn’t happen, so we returned to where we started.

I mean overall it wasn’t the end of the world, but I wasn’t paying for my ride or spending vacation days to be there.


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I mean, AMC made my regional look like the ultimate well oiled machine.
 
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