Summer Notes for 20 January 2010

The lovely "Summer Weather" caused havoc during late evening Sunday 17-January-2010 and early morning Monday 18-January-2010, with Fog and low cloud closing Wellington airport for much of this period. The effects are listed below.

Qantas/Jetconnect
Boeing 737-476 ZK-JTR operating QF117 SYD-WLG 17/01 diverted to AKL - it positioned from AKL to WLG and then operated delayed services QF118/47/38/134 on 18/01.

Air New Zealand
Airbus A320 ZK-OJA operating NZ144 SYD-WLG 17/01 diverted to AKL. On 18/01 it attempted to position from AKL to WLG as NZ6501. It then departed AKL to WLG after lunch as NZ6731 before operating the scheduled domestic service NZ420 back to AKL.

Airbus A320 ZK-OJC operating NZ166 BNE-WLG 17/01 diverted to AKL. 18/01 saw it attempt to position to WLG as NZ6291. It later departed AKL as NZ6021 to ROT to operate the scheduled NZ973 ROT-SYD. ZK-OJB later positioned from ROT to AKL as NZ6022 after arriving as NZ972 from SYD.

The other Airbus affected by the Wellington weather was ZK-OJD which attempted to operate scheduled domestic flight NZ405 before positioning to WLG as NZ6729 before entering scheduled afternoon trans-tasman services.

Pacific Blue
Pacific Blue Boeing 737-8FE VH-VOQ operating DJ4068 17/01 diverted to AKL. 18/01 saw it position down to Wellington in the early evening before operating the very delayed DJ4069 back to BNE. The scheduled DJ4068 for 18/01 operated as normal with VH-VUQ.

Domestic services were also affected with both DJ3004 AKL-WLG and DJ3165 CHC-WLG returning to their departure points after unsuccessful landing attempts into WLG resulting in the return flights DJ3011 WLG-AKL and DJ3170 WLG-CHC being canceled and the days remaining flights operating with delays.

Jetstar
Jetstar domestic services were effected with all flights operating on a delayed schedule but with no cancellations.

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Qantas/Jetconnect

Saturday 26-December-2009 saw
Boeing 737-476 ZK-JTP operate from WLG to AKL as QF118 (WLG-SYD) before Boeing 737-476 ZK-JTR continued from AKL to SYD as QF118.
Boeing 737-838 ZK-ZQA suffered mechanical issues in SYD being replaced on QF113/134 (SYD-AKL-MEL) by Qantas mainline Boeing 737-838 VH-VXM, while Boeing 737-838 ZK-ZQC positioned from SYD to MEL as QF6007 in preparation to operate the scheduled MEL-AKL QF25 service the next morning.
ZQA then returned to service as the heavily delayed QF141 SYD-AKL on 27-December-2009

New Year's Eve 31-December-2009 saw Boeing 737-476 ZK-JTQ operating QF133 MEL-AKL operate via BNE due to fuel upload requirements for a non-etops flight.

Sunday 3-January-2010 saw Boeing 737-376 ZK-JTQ operating QF48 WLG-SYD divert to CHC after a bird strike. JTQ remained in CHC until it positioned to AKL on Tuesday 05-January-2010
03/01 then saw ZK-JTS positioned to WLG from AKL as QF6172 to cover the flying the next day, with the remaining two flights that day QF48/117 (WLG-SYD-WLG) canceled.

Boeing 737-476 ZK-JTS positioned from AKL to CHC as QF6171 on Saturday 11-January-2010 for scheduled maintenance.

Saturday 16-January-2010 saw Boeing 737-838 ZK-ZQB undergo some maintenance in MEL with QF25/26 being covered by mainline Boeing 737-838 VH-VXD, before ZQB returned to service as QF131.

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Jetstar

Jetstar re-introduced the evening JQ257/258 AKL-CHC-AKL service on Monday 28-December-2009, albeit only operating Mo, Fr, Sa, Su that week. JQ257/258 is now operating 6x weekly (no Wednesday service) The JQ257/258 service had been dropped at the start of December.

There have been 3 flight cancellations for JQ so far in 2010
Monday 04-January-2010 - JQ244/247 morning CHC-AKL-CHC service
Saturday 09-January-2010 JQ247/246 mid morning AKL-CHC-AKL service
Tuesday 19-January-2010 JQ254/255 evening CHC-AKL-CHC service

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Air New Zealand

Sunday 10-January-2010 saw Airbus A320-232 ZK-OJN operating NZ171 AKL-CNS divert to BNE due to a cracked windscreen. OJN positioned back to AKL as NZ6292 on Monday 11-January-2010.

Air New Zealand have been using their A320s to increase loads on certain ZQN domestic flights over the summer period with A320s being noted used at different times on the following route.
AKL-ZQN-AKL operating as both NZ1619/1620 and NZ619/620

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Pacific Blue

Pacific Blue (NZ) operated Pacific Blue (Aust) Boeing 737-8BK VH-VOX on scheduled Domestic and International routes between Monday 04-January-2010 and Monday 18-January-2010 to cover the scheduled maintenance of two of its aircraft. ZK-PBF (04-13 Jan) and ZK-PBM (13-18 Jan)