Posted on 01/31/2023 10:30:29 AM PST by george76
After flying for more than 13 hours, passengers on an Emirates flight bound for Auckland, New Zealand, landed at the same Dubai airport from which they departed.
Passengers boarded flight EK448 in Dubai on Friday, Jan. 27 around 10:30 a.m. local time, reported Fox Business. However, the pilot turned the plane around almost halfway through the 9,000-mile trip and landed back in Dubai just after midnight on Saturday, Jan. 28.
The unusual situation occurred as a result of severe flooding at Auckland Airport, according to the outlet. Videos circulating on social media showed passengers wading through water inside the terminal.
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Did you know the Auckland airport is the only airport in the world to have an immersive underwater experience in the terminal?
Brilliant architecture!
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Authorities declared a state of emergency in New Zealand after torrential rainfall caused flooding that has killed at least four people since Friday, BBC reported. The flooding is the worst Auckland has seen in 100 years.
Airport authorities announced the closure of international flights on Saturday afternoon. “Auckland Airport has been assessing the damage to our international terminal and unfortunately determined that no international flights can operate today,” the airport said in a Jan. 28 statement on Twitter. “We know this is extremely frustrating but the safety of passengers is our top priority.”
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The airport also advised passengers to check with their airlines about flights, as “schedules may be disrupted for several days.” International flights to Auckland did not resume until Sunday morning.
“We regret the inconvenience caused to customers. Emirates will continue to monitor the situation in Auckland and issue updates where required,” Emirates said
“I would never fly any of their airlines.”
I hear you, but I’ll take the babes on Emirates over the aged, plus-sized, samples on United, should I be heading out of the US.
The pilot had one job. One job!
Maybe passenger visa Issues? Maybe NZ Airport closing information was sketchy. The flight was on a AB 380 so there may have been limited places for it land down under, etc..
That’s a lot of roasted peanuts!
Hey what a neat scam- sell tickets that post a ‘destination’, but in small print barely legible say “Just kidding, we are gonna circle back a lot and land right where we took off- you will have to buy another ticket if you want off the island”
You’re right. It’s not a good idea to land in an authoritarian country...but then why were they going to New Zealand, home of the Fee and land of the Slave?
Yet those island libtards are always complaining about climate change
9000 mile trip to nowhere
Abdul continued to fly circles around Lake Okeechobee for hours until he ran out of fuel and crashed.
Arrivals coming into JFK or Newark from ME countries are vectored onto final ILS by controllers instead of working them in by an IAF or STAR because it's not worth the chaos they create trying to fly the plane like everyone else has to do. Airspace disruptive morons.
Landing rights issue unless they were to declare an emergency. Also depending on the time of day there was a curfew in Sydney. Literally $1 million to land or depart during the curfew. My company a actually considered it once when they thought we were going to be late due to a maintenance issue.
Exactly!
I’ve flown Emirates a number of times. The pilots on the flights I’ve been on were mostly Aussies and every one of them spoke flawless English...without a Third World accent.
Aaarrggghhhh…that sounds logistically and personally painful. 🤦🏻♀️
Sounds like Jen Psaki was the navigator. 😉
“”I would never fly any of their airlines. They are not necessarily skilled. They are a caste system of birthright among the privileged or ruling class. A few yes perhaps, but by large no.””
The navy flight instructors at Miramar used to say the same thing and worse, they said the pupils of that caste could not appear to be interested in the class and that even the interested ones had to pretend to be indifferent to the instructors and their teaching.
Oh, it gets better. So I landed in KC at 2:30 AM and had to get to Columbia MO. for my sister’s college graduation. I didn’t know it was an hour’s drive from the KC airport to I-70. Got to I-70 around 4AM. Raining like hell. Ok got coffee and settle in for a 2 hour ride to Columbia in a heavy thunderstorm. Got to Columbia about sunrise. I had left Lubbock the day before at 4PM.
Yep. An arrogance more so than I’ve ever otherwise seen. No skills backing up that arrogance.
Landing in a different airport would have required the airline to put crew and passengers up in a hotel, give them food vouchers, and whatnot for the whole time they were stuck there.
Cheaper to just fly back from whence you came.
Reminds me of Chico Marx’s speech in Night at the Opera, when he was posing as one of the famous aviators.
“The first time we fly to America, we get-a halfway across when we run out of gas. So we gotta go back.” And so on.
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