Air New Zealand maintains full schedule

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Air New Zealand maintains full schedule

24/06/2011 10:10pm

> From the WeatherWatch archives

Air New Zealand passengers are the only people taking to the skies today,our national carrier is the only airline maintaining its full schedule in the face of the volcanic ash cloud from Chile.

Qantas, Jetstar and Pacific Blue have all cancelled all services to, in and from New Zealand.

Air New Zealand says it is monitoring the conditions constantly, but for now all its domestic and international flights are running.

New Zealand’s Civil Aviation Authority and Australia’s Ash Advisory centre both say flying under the current ash cloud is perfectly safe – but that it’s up to individual airlines to choose whether or not to fly.

– NewstalkZB with WeatherWatch.co.nz

See our Frequently Asked Questions and answers on the current ash clouds.

Comments

Before you add a new comment, take note this story was published on 24 Jun 2011.

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Doug Bowker on 25/06/2011 5:51am

What I can’t understand is that Qantas and Jetstar won’t fly citing safety, yet they are transferring passengers onto AirNZ and other carriers. Seems very odd when they are allegedly concerned with the safety of their passengers…

The other thing is that obviously sooner or later this ash must get to the Earth’s surface – is there a likelihood it could fall on Antartica and what likely effect could that have?

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WW Forecast Team on 25/06/2011 6:19am

Hi Doug – eventually the ash will fall to the earth but in such fine amounts it will basically be undetectable. The ash that is passing above us is INCREDIBLY fine…its not like the ash falling in Chile and Argentina. Some of the ash will evaporate too, that’s how small it is….but it will become so diluted in the atmosphere that we won’t be able to see where it falls.

– WW

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Anna on 25/06/2011 2:10am

I’m finding it hard to get info on ash cloud movement. I have a flight with Qantas Monday to LA and want to find up to date predictions of what the experts think the cloud is doing so I can prepare. We are getting rather anxious waiting all day!
Thanks

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WW Forecast Team on 25/06/2011 2:22am

Hi Anna – unfortunately the ash mapping only goes out for 24 hours. The good news is that the ash cloud is likely to be above 20,000 feet for Sunday (and therefore we think Monday too). The bad news (for you) is that Qantas are refusing to fly under any of the ash clouds, regardless of height. Hopefully the ash will move to the east on Monday allowing normal flights to resume. Feel free to check in with us again on Sunday afternoon for the latest on the ash.

Cheers (and we wish you luck)

WW

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Laurence on 25/06/2011 1:30am

This is very misleading. What about all the other airlines flying in and out of Auckland? I’ve just checked the Emirates website and their arrival from Melbourne has arrived and they are flying as normal to and from Australia and New Zealand. Let’s have the complete picture.

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WW Forecast Team on 25/06/2011 1:36am

Story was written by NewstalkZB at 8:30am, published on our site at 10:30am – more than likely flights have changed since then. Flights are changing fairly frequently.

– WW

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kiwitrucker on 25/06/2011 12:18am

What does flying have to do with what the weather is doing???. How about giving weather stories not flying info!!

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WW Forecast Team on 25/06/2011 1:24am

Um – everything! The ash cloud is 100% connected to the weather and is proving to be our highest trending story at the moment.

– WW

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