Disruptive passenger forces Air New Zealand flight bound for Auckland to divert to Melbourne

The flight continued to Auckland after 90-minute delay, Air New Zealand says

File: An Air New Zealand passenger plane takes off from Christchurch Airport in New Zealand, on 16 March 2020 (Copyright 2020 The Associated Press. All rights reserved)

An Air New Zealand flight bound for Auckland, New Zealand, from Perth, Australia, was forced to divert on Wednesday morning after a passenger became disruptive, the airline said.

The flight landed instead in the Australian city of Melbourne, where police officers awaited the aircraft. The flight continued to Auckland after a 90-minute delay, Air New Zealand said in a statement.

The carrier did not give more details about the episode.

“Our crew managed the incident well, but incidents like this are distressing for our customers and our people and we have zero tolerance for this sort of behavior on our aircraft,” said an airline spokesperson, David Morgan.

The diversion came less than a week after another Air New Zealand flight was held on the tarmac for two hours when it arrived in its destination, Sydney, following what the airline called a security incident. Local news outlets reported there had been a bomb threat.

There was “no threat to the community", Australian Federal Police said Saturday.