Air New Zealand has confirmed Noum\u00e9a airport in New Caledonia is closed until Tuesday, as civil unrest continues in the French territory.<\/p>\n
In a statement, Air NZ said the closure of the airport left it “with no option but to cancel our services on Saturday 18 May and Monday 20 May”.<\/p>\n
“Even when the airport does reopen, Air New Zealand will only operate into Noum\u00e9a when we can be assured that the airport is safe and secure, and that there is a safe route for our ground staff and customers to reach the airport.<\/p>\n
“We are in close contact with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFAT), who are providing us with updated information and guidance, as well as our codeshare partner Aircalin.<\/p>\n
Once we are able to resume operations again, customers will be rebooked onto available services. We are also offering flexibility for customers to defer travel.”<\/p>\n
Earlier today, Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters told\u00a0Morning Report\u00a0<\/i>government officials had been working on an “hourly basis” to see what could be done to help New Zealanders wanting to leave.<\/p>\n
That included the Airforce or using a commercial airline.<\/p>\n
More than 200 New Zealanders were registered as being in the country, his advice to them was to stay in place and keep in contact.<\/p>\n
Before the closure of the airport, Wellington researcher Barbara Graham – who has been in Noum\u00e9a for five weeks – said the main issue was “the road to the airport … and I understand it still impassable because of the danger there, the roadblocks and the violent groups of people”.<\/p>\n
More to come…
\n<\/i><\/b>VIA RNZ<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Air New Zealand has confirmed Noum\u00e9a airport in New Caledonia is closed until Tuesday, as civil unrest continues in the French territory. In a statement, Air NZ said the closure of the airport left it “with no option but to cancel our services on Saturday 18 May and Monday 20 May”. “Even when the airport […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":9836,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[222,208,174,177],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9835","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latest-news","category-lifestyle","category-nz-news","category-world"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9835","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9835"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9835\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9837,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9835\/revisions\/9837"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9836"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9835"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9835"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9835"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}