Air New Zealand cancels Tonga flights on 30 December [1]
Wednesday, November 20, 2019 - 18:23
Air New Zealand has cancelled its return flights to Tonga scheduled for 30 December due to maintenance issues with the Rolls-Royce engines on its Boeing 787-9 aircraft.
Passengers booked on flights NZ270 Auckland-Tonga and NZ273 Tonga-Auckland for 30 December 2019 will need to reschedule their bookings.
More than 80 flights in total have been cancelled by Air New Zealand, mostly between New Zealand and Australia affecting thousands of holiday travellers.
In a media statement this week, Air New Zealand announced that the cancellations were made because of “…ongoing global issues impacting some Rolls-Royce engines on its Boeing 787-9 aircraft”.
“Unfortunately, around 14,000 customers will be impacted by cancellations and we thank them in advance for their understanding”, said Doug Grant, Air NZ Senior Manager of Customer Care and Communications.
“Going into the holiday season we’re acutely aware how important travel is to our customers, and our schedule changes are designed to keep cancellations to a minimum.”
Airlines around the world are facing the same maintenance issues with the same Rolls-Royce engines.
Rolls-Royce requires operators of its Trent 1000 TEN model engines to carry out more frequent maintenance due to an issue with the engine’s high-pressure turbine blades.
Air New Zealand has 10 Trent 1000 TEN engines fitted to its 787-9 fleet