Qantas Passengers "dumped" at Christchurch airport after diverting from Wellington after missing curfew

[encryptededdy]

Curious, I can't see performance back further than this month, does NZ 254 (MEL-WLG) which is scheduled to arrive 5 mins earlier than QF163 ever meet the same fate?

Looks like it's only been operating (non-daily) since 30 Oct 2022. I can see it was cancelled on 13 Nov 2022 and landed late (12:41 AM) on 11 Nov.

 

[jpp42]

On the other hand, if you want an unsegregated experience as is the case like the US, make the process of immigration and security painless as they have done for Global Entry members.

Another option, which is something that I think would be ideal for trans-Tasman flights, is the concept of pre-clearance. For those not aware, US Immigration & Customs operates pre-clearance facilities in a number of foreign airports, primarily Canada but also places as far-flung as Abu Dhabi. Passengers are cleared for US entry at the departure airport, which allows the aircraft to arrive at a domestic-only gate, with passengers continuing to domestic connections (or baggage claim) without any further queues or screening. This has the added benefit that it reduces risks to airlines of carrying people who ultimately get refused entry or deported, and thus becomes a hassle for them to be returned to the point of origin.

Departure preclearance in AUS for NZ would be a perfect way to get around limited hours of NZ customs at ports like WLG, or even AKL as we see here, and could even allow removal of customs facilities at ports like ZQN, assuming it doesn't have international flights from places other than AU capital cities. There are already certain gates at major international terminals like SYD that have enclosed holding areas; it would take some additional effort to add things like biosecurity inspection but I don't see it as impossible. Absent a "schengen-style" agreement , which unfortunately seems to be off the table, I think preclearance would really help.

 

[kangarooflyer88]

Another option, which is something that I think would be ideal for trans-Tasman flights, is the concept of pre-clearance. For those not aware, US Immigration & Customs operates pre-clearance facilities in a number of foreign airports, primarily Canada but also places as far-flung as Abu Dhabi. Passengers are cleared for US entry at the departure airport, which allows the aircraft to arrive at a domestic-only gate, with passengers continuing to domestic connections (or baggage claim) without any further queues or screening. This has the added benefit that it reduces risks to airlines of carrying people who ultimately get refused entry or deported, and thus becomes a hassle for them to be returned to the point of origin.

Whilst that sounds like a great idea, the big issue I see is demand for travel between AU and NZ is virtually non-existent and would be hardly enough to justify the added infrastructure needed to support such an operation. It's not just a matter of bringing NZ immigration officers over to AU to do pre-clearance but you need to segregate gates into three categories now, domestic, international and trans-tasman. To give you a sense of scale here: the number of daily flights operating between Toronto's Pearson airport in Canada and New York's airports is 28 for Chicago O'Hare airport it's 14, add another 4 daily flights to San Francisco and another 4 daily flights to Los Angeles and it's clear to see there is a ton of volume at Canadian airports to US destinations. Whilst I haven't counted the number of daily flights departing Toronto for US airports, I think the number is close to 100 if not more. Indeed the air travel market between Canada and the US is the second largest in the world, not surprising considering Canada and the US share the world's longest border. Meanwhile looking at flights from Sydney over to Auckland, New Zealand's largest city it's just 10.

In terms of the story of this thread, which is the occurrence (with some regularity) of flights from Australia having to divert to AKL due to curfew, pre-clearing immigration wouldn't do much here. A diversion would still occur, and even if they are now land-side in AKL, would it have made much of a difference given they were unlikely to be provided a hotel?

-RooFlyer88

 

[justinbrett]

Whilst that sounds like a great idea, the big issue I see is demand for travel between AU and NZ is virtually non-existent and would be hardly enough to justify the added infrastructure needed to support such an operation. It's not just a matter of bringing NZ immigration officers over to AU to do pre-clearance but you need to segregate gates into three categories now, domestic, international and trans-tasman. To give you a sense of scale here: the number of daily flights operating between Toronto's Pearson airport in Canada and New York's airports is 28 for Chicago O'Hare airport it's 14, add another 4 daily flights to San Francisco and another 4 daily flights to Los Angeles and it's clear to see there is a ton of volume at Canadian airports to US destinations. Whilst I haven't counted the number of daily flights departing Toronto for US airports, I think the number is close to 100 if not more. Indeed the air travel market between Canada and the US is the second largest in the world, not surprising considering Canada and the US share the world's longest border. Meanwhile looking at flights from Sydney over to Auckland, New Zealand's largest city it's just 10.

In terms of the story of this thread, which is the occurrence (with some regularity) of flights from Australia having to divert to AKL due to curfew, pre-clearing immigration wouldn't do much here. A diversion would still occur, and even if they are now land-side in AKL, would it have made much of a difference given they were unlikely to be provided a hotel?

-RooFlyer88

In the US/CA example, it would be Australia providing preclearance in NZ, not the other way around (with AU being the larger market with more airports to fly to/from).

There is probably some merit to provide preclearance in AKL which would allow airlines to serve smaller domestic airports like NTL without standing up border force.

The other difference is US don't do (physical) outwards passport control, so even if AU did preclearance in AKL, the outbound flight to NZ would still need to leave from an international terminal, which makes it pointless.

However CA is not the only country that does preclearance, there's quite a few with fewer flights than your example - Abu Dhabi for example. I'd argue SYD is on the verge of being viable for preclearance to the US.

 

[kangarooflyer88]

In the US/CA example, it would be Australia providing preclearance in NZ, not the other way around (with AU being the larger market with more airports to fly to/from).

Yes but if Australia provided pre-clearance in NZ, how would this help stranded passengers on these QF flights?

There is probably some merit to provide preclearance in AKL which would allow airlines to serve smaller domestic airports like NTL without standing up border force.

If there was ever an AU pre-clearance centre in Oceania, AKL would likely be the one given the number of destinations to AU served. But a key question would be whether AKL would build out a special facility for all of this, particularly given how tiny the airport is.

The other difference is US don't do (physical) outwards passport control, so even if AU did preclearance in AKL, the outbound flight to NZ would still need to leave from an international terminal, which makes it pointless.

Another key thing is neither the US nor Canada does exit passport control. Those who travel regularly between the US and Canada are already part of a frequent traveller scheme (i.e. Nexus or Global Entry) meaning they have already been background checked and interviewed by the Canadian CBSA and US CBP and determined to be a low risk traveller. Consequently, they can use special kiosks/gates to clear US pre-clearance without having to talk to anyone with the whole process being quicker than the silly eGates Australia and the UK use.

However CA is not the only country that does preclearance, there's quite a few with fewer flights than your example - Abu Dhabi for example. I'd argue SYD is on the verge of being viable for preclearance to the US.

There are a handful of airport that do US pre-clearance outside of Canada (namely Dublin airport and Abu Dhabi and a couple of Caribbean ports). Caribbean airports make sense since a ton of Americans travel there during winter season. Dublin made sense since this was how BA offered "domestic" service from central London to New York without having to deal with the formalities of US entry, although I would argue that Abu Dhabi and Dublin were simply test balloons CBP put out there. In every case, a special part of the airport has to be dedicated to that operation with its own facilities built up to support pre-clearance. For instance, if you go to Dublin airport you will notice there is a special section of the airport dedicated explicitly for US departures with its own security, US preclearance and other facilities there.

-RooFlyer88

 

[exLXCXFF]

Well, more NZ Customs than AKL itself. Considering they opened to process the crew for 30 minutes, it was a reasonable assumption they'd stay open to process the pax.

Out of curiosity - yesterday's QF149 (SYD - AKL) [23 November departing], scheduled departure at 0715pm only actually departed SYD at 1056pm and landed at AKL on 0336am [24 November arriving]. Does anyone know what happened to these pax? Did they have to wait until Customs opened like at 5am or where they processed upon arrival?

 

[antycbr]

Out of curiosity - yesterday's QF149 (SYD - AKL) [23 November departing], scheduled departure at 0715pm only actually departed SYD at 1056pm and landed at AKL on 0336am [24 November arriving]. Does anyone know what happened to these pax? Did they have to wait until Customs opened like at 5am or where they processed upon arrival?

Based on my experience from last Friday dealing with Menzies Aviation, they wouldn’t have got their bags until 6am anyway.

 

[RooFlyer]

You just think QF would have contingencies in place ... after all it's not a far flung port they fly to just 3 times a week.

You'd think so, wouldn't you? Until you consider the type of airline Qantas has become. I've argued before that an airline like Qantas should have some sort of agent in place (ie on retainer) at many possible diversion airports to handle rare (vary rare) irrops to those ports should they happen. But Wellington? Nah, why bother? Let 'em sleep on the floor.

As for lack of NZ immigration people - I don't think its unheard of for airlines to pay for extra immigration services is it? Would it be that hard to arrange a contingency that the airline would pay NZ immigration to stay on/come in? Nah, let 'em sleep on the floor.

 

[AustraliaPoochie]

On the 22 Nov, Air NZ got diverted on flight from SYD to CHC, instead of AKL, it circled for a long time before being diverted.
So I would say that incoming NZ immigration would have needed to have been done at CHC.
Not sure why, saw it on flightradar and flightaware.
So, its not only QF that does it.

 

[Kiwi_Flyer]

I'm surprised those pax stayed airside without pulling a fire alarm, that would be the last resort, but a pretty effective way to gain entry to landside in that situation.

Fire alarm wouldn't have helped. A few years back there was a small fire at AKL international terminal baggage claim. All arriving pax were held in immigration area, on aircraft and even on the tarmac. I was one of thousands caught up in this. Instead of making early evening domestic connecting flight I didn't get landside until after midnight.

 

[Kiwi_Flyer]

WLG curfew is a weird one in that both ends of the runway face the ocean.

There are houses on the hills both sides of the flightpath, and for the northern approach you fly directly over a couple of suburbs at not that much of an altitude. The harbour and terrain means the aircraft noise reverberates. I don't live anywhere near the flightpath in WLG but yet can hear all the aircraft during evening, night and early morning.