Passengers on one of Qantas’ longest flights were in for a particularly long journey recently, when the airline had to divert over the South Pacific, landing in another country. Matters only got more complicated from there, when the crew timed out.
Qantas’ New York to Auckland flight diverts to Nadi, Fiji
Qantas operates a flight from New York (JFK) to Sydney (SYD) via Auckland (AKL). In 2026, the airline plans to fly nonstop between New York and Sydney, once it takes delivery of Airbus A350-1000s. In the meantime, this service operates via New Zealand, with the long haul sector being a fifth freedom flight, meaning passengers can fly Qantas exclusively between the United States and New Zealand.
The route ordinarily operates with the following schedule:
QF4 New York to Auckland departing 7:20PM arriving 6:00AM (+2 days)
QF4 Auckland to Sydney departing 8:00AM arriving 9:35AM
That first segment generally clocks in at over 16 hours in the air, while the second segment typically has a flight time of over three hours.
This particular incident involves the flight from New York to Auckland on October 2, 2024, which was operated by a three-year-old Boeing 787-9 with the registration code on VH-ZNN.
The aircraft departed New York roughly on-time (it took off at 8:07PM local time), and began the marathon journey across North America, and then across the Pacific. Everything was looking good until around an hour before the aircraft was due to land in Auckland.
There was bad fog at the airport, impacting the ability for planes to land. As a result, a diversion was needed. However, rather than diverting to another airport in New Zealand, the decision was instead made to divert to Nadi, Fiji (NAN). So the jet made a turn to the northwest, and landed there at 4:38AM local time on October 4, 2024, after a 16hr30min journey.
While there has been no public statement about why the 787 diverted to Fiji rather than to another airport in New Zealand, I suspect it’s a function of having sufficient fuel. Auckland is in the very north of New Zealand, so perhaps the 787 didn’t have enough fuel (while factoring in minimum reserves) to get to another airport further south in New Zealand. Or maybe conditions there were equally bad.
Qantas crew times out, leaving flight stranded
There are a maximum number of hours that crews can work. Obviously after a flight of this length, pilots and flight attendants are exhausted, so the crew ended up timing out, having maxed out their legal hours. So at this point the airline was stuck with a planeload of passengers in a foreign country, without easy access to a rested crew.
As you’d expect, assembling an entire 787 crew doesn’t happen instantly, and that’s not even factoring in the need to fly them to another airport that’s hours from where they’re based.
For passengers, there was good news and bad news. The good news was that the airline did a pretty good job finding a replacement crew. The bad news was that this still required a wait of around 12 hours.
Qantas sends rescue crew, flies 787 to Sydney
Qantas managed to find a replacement crew, and based on the timing, I suspect that the crew flew on Qantas’ scheduled Boeing 737-800 flight from Sydney to Nadi, departing at 8:35AM and arriving at 2:35PM.
Upon arrival in Fiji, the crew took over on the stranded 787, and the jet took off from Nadi at 4:48PM. It’s not entirely clear what happened to the passengers for the 12 hours they were on the ground, but suffice it to say that this sounds quite unpleasant.
Once airborne, there was another twist. Rather than flying to Auckland, the intended immediate destination, the jet instead flew to Sydney, where it landed at 7:09PM local time, after a 4hr21min flight. The aircraft arrived in Sydney around 10 hours behind schedule.
Now, keep in mind that some passengers were intending to travel to Auckland, since the airline has pick-up rights there. So why would Qantas just skip Auckland, and fly straight to Sydney?
- I imagine the replacement crew could legally operate one flight, but probably not two flights, given that they were deadheading to get to Nadi in the first place
- While there may have been a crew in Auckland waiting to operate the planned flight, it’s possible that the flight would’ve then been pushing up against Sydney’s curfew, and would need to be delayed by an extra day
- Presumably Qantas wanted to get the 787 back to base and into regular service as soon as possible, so flying the plane to Sydney accomplished that, rather than it having to spend a night in Auckland
- I imagine a majority of passengers on the flight weren’t terminating in Auckland, but rather were intending to fly to Sydney and beyond
For those who were intending to fly to Auckland, this was an even longer journey. They had to spend the night in Sydney, and then traveled to Auckland (or their final destination) the following day.
Bottom line
One of Qantas’ longest flights had quite the journey a few days ago. The New York to Auckland service had to divert to Nadi, after fog in Auckland prevented the plane from landing. The crew then timed out, so Qantas had to fly a replacement crew to Nadi to continue the journey. However, at that point the decision was made to just skip Auckland, and instead fly straight to Sydney.
What do you make of this Qantas 787 diversion to Fiji?
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