Airways New Zealand has confirmed it experienced a disruption to its main oceanic air traffic control system which temporarily disrupted air traffic services operating across the Tasman.

Airways New Zealand Chief Executive James Young told Chris Lynch Media  “New Zealand’s oceanic airspace covers a large area across the Pacific Ocean and Tasman Sea. The oceanic air traffic control system is the system Airways uses to manage aircraft flying to and from New Zealand across this airspace.

“At 4:30pm, the main oceanic air traffic control system experienced an outage and operations were switched to a back-up system. During this time, flight plans for the Tasman sector were unable to be processed through the system, causing delays.

“As a result of this, five flights were held in the air, three of which were diverted back to New Zealand after holding for around 40 minutes, with the remaining two flights proceeding to their destination after holding. Flights were also held on the ground in both Australia and New Zealand during this time.

“The main system was restored at 5:05pm with normal operations resuming by 5:30pm

“A full technical review is now underway.

Our main priority is the safety of the travelling public and we apologise to all customers and their passengers who were affected.”