Air NZ flights out of Chch 'close to normal'

Wellington passengers hoping to get home to Christchurch for Christmas may be out of luck.Air New Zealand announced to passengers at Wellington Airport this afternoon that there were no extra seats available until at least Christmas Day for those whose flights had been cancelled.A spokeswoman said the airline was looking into whether it would be possible to schedule any extra services.Obviously this is a peak demand period for travel and flights are very heavily booked, which means there is limited capacity at this stage to accommodate disrupted passengers.However, we are currently in the process of looking at whether we are able to add any further capacity to our current schedule.Several flights from Wellington to Christchurch have been disrupted by today's earthquakes.Flights scheduled to depart from Wellington International Airport bound for Christchurch at 4pm, 4.30 and 6.45pm were cancelled while flights at 5 and 5.30 were delayed.

A 6.45pm flight to Whakatane and the 4.20 flight from Wellington to Palmerston North was also cancelled.The spokeswoman said customers should consult the company's website for flight information as delays and cancellations would be listed there as soon as possible.Christchurch Airport chief executive Jim Boult said there had been no damage to the airport's runways and flights into and out of the city were expected to re-commence about 6pm.We expect there will be significant delays and some flight cancellations. It's likely to be well into tomorrow before the backlog is cleared, he said.People should check with their airlines before going to the airport.