Air New Zealand Flight Returns To Same Airport After 16 Hours

On February 16, passengers on Air New Zealand flight from Auckland to New York landed at the same place where they started after 16 hours, as per a report in the Washington Post. 

Air New Zealand Flight NZ2 was supposed to land at Terminal 1 of John F. Kennedy International Airport at 5:40 pm local time. Instead, a power outage disrupted operations and at least 135 aircraft into and out of the city. The airport explained the power loss on Twitter to be the result of an electrical panel failure and a "small isolated fire" that was quickly extinguished.

"A power outage at JFK Terminal 1 is impacting the terminal's ability to accept inbound and outbound flights. We are working to accommodate impacted flights using other terminals. Travelers, please check flight status with your airline before heading to the airport," John F. Kennedy Airport tweeted. 

The Boeing 787 made a U-turn halfway through its approximately 9,000-mile (14,000 kilometers) flight over the Pacific Ocean, south of Hawaii, according to data from the Flightradar24 website. The turnaround made the plane the most closely followed flight on the website.

As per the Washington Post, the airline said in a statement that the Auckland-New York flight was "forced to divert back" due to the terminal fire. Many people on social media questioned why the flight couldn't land at another US airport instead. The airline added that landing at another American airport would have ultimately caused too much disruption to the carrier's business activities.

"Diverting to another US port would have meant the aircraft would remain on the ground for several days, impacting a number of other scheduled services and customers," Air New Zealand said in a statement.  Passengers were rebooked on flights leaving Friday night and Saturday after the flight landed at noon. 

Many users took to Twitter to express their displeasure. "A 16-hour flight and you end up back where you started. What a productive day," said a user.

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"Imagine flying for almost a day to.. immediately have to fly all the way back home," commented another user.

A third person said, "That's like spending 16 hours on a treadmill & paying for it!"

"This is straight-up nonsense. So much wasted time & fuel. Aviation apologists claim the flight can't go to another terminal, no allocated gates, customs issues. It's all BS. Solutions can be achieved. People are just too lazy or too tied to policies to deal with it," said a fourth user.