A Qantas Boeing 787's Complicated Diversion To Fiji...

There are 5 flights a day to AKL from NAN. FJ / NZ. Given this is mostly a through flight…..they could reroute the AKL local traffic easily on NZ and FJ.

I’m getting a feeling a lot of these posts are getting more AI writing.

@ Isaac -- Sorry you seemingly didn't enjoy the post, but I can assure you there's zero AI writing here. I wouldn't even know how to do that. 😉

Yes, there are nonstop flights between Auckland and Nadi (three to four, as far as I can tell, and not five), and it's possible that passengers were routed onto one of those. However, for diversions, it's not unusual for airlines not to allow that, given the complexity involved, especially if people have checked bags.

So yes, I probably should have mentioned that, but I promise you it doesn't mean this post is generated by AI.

I think the answer of 'why Fiji' is quite simple: runway length. As we all know, the recommended runway length for a 787 with payload is about 3000m.

Auckland is one of two commercial airports in New Zealand with a runway over 3000m. The other one being Christchurch, which is well over an hour away, being about halfway the South Island, and thus further to the south than Auckland. We don't know how the weather was there, but I can imagine that an extra hour of flying was a bit too much at the end of this marathon.

I, for one, enjoy a majority of Ben’s quality and informative articles, unlike another website that is hardly a thought leader full of articles that are more suited for The Enquirer. He could probably benefit from AI as many of his articles seem like they were written when he’s had a few too many to drink. For the few articles that do not pique my interest, I don’t open them.

I was once on a QF LAX-BNE flight that diverted to NAN due to fog at BNE. My regret is that we didn't get a nice long layover!

Anyways, I don't find much about the diversion much of a big deal, except perhaps for those requiring an additional connection in SYD.

It seems to me at least that these ultralonghaul flights are highly wasteful when you also factor in how often something goes wrong with them. Which, at the very edges of the operational envelope of the aircraft (and the crews), is relatively often. The nature of the flights is already a huge fuel waster (having to carry so many tons of extra just to be able to go nonstop). And then as soon as the slightest thing goes wrong, everything goes wrong really badly.

There has been no way in human history that you could get from Australia to NYC in one hop, I don't know why we have to try so hard to make this a thing. By comparison, Qantas's aggregation of BNE/MEL/SYD flights in LAX and then onward tag with 1 plane (good!) to NYC has worked for a long time, and saves so much gas compared to this.

This just seems like a waste.

I think this response is actually AI. It looks like AI, written like AI and smells of AI. Disregard the original comment.

A 787 along with 350 and 747’s can absolutely land at WLG, PMR and Ohakea at the end of a flight with no problem. CHC just makes logistics a little easier as the days of regular wide bodies at WLG are long gone

Thanks for another great article. And yes, you are 100 per cent right to stay away from AI (tacky glorified search engines) - your writing is beautifully human and I'm sick to death of artificial AI text elsewhere, devoid of grammatical diversions and other quirks that make your writing "readable".

Hello, we found a dinosaur.

The Jurassic wants Eric Schmidt back.

Neanderthals lived fine in without technology or commercial aviation.
And they saved a lot of gas.
Eric Schmidt go live in a cave and walk. It's not wasteful.

My understanding is this is only possible if QF has traffic rights between the US and Fiji. I was took CX's SFO-HKG-TPE and the SFO-HKG flight was diverted to TPE. I could not terminate there as CX did not have traffic rights between the US and Taiwan. Obviously, if a particular pax has a medical emergency, that's another story.

Fun fact - Fiji Airways files 2x daily to Auckland with their A330 and code shares it with QF. Most-to all FJ flights are code shared with QF. QF has a 16 percent minority stake in FJ, down from 48 percent pre-pandemic.

@767-223: Ben's articles that "seem like they were written when he’s had a few too many to drink" are often really fun to read.

@Ben: Please keep them coming!

They did what they had to do. It's unfortunate but sometimes happens. There are lots of things that go on behind the scenes and it appears to have been managed as best as could be expected. Finding a replacement crew was a win.

You are pretty much right. Most passengers are heading to Australia. So made sense to go to Sydney for them, the ac schedule and crew. They have a NZ crew base but due to other factors mentioned best to get to final destination. Fog affects most of the main airports that they could divert to in nz. So risk aversion means Nadi. Air NZ operates this route and has also had to divert on occasion.