Air travellers disrupted by Friday's major weather event in Auckland are now taking to the skies as airline schedules resume and the airport ramps up.
Auckland Airport is not yet fully operational again, but it's adapting parts of its operation to keep things going.
The airport's water-damaged automated baggage loading system has been temporarily replaced by traditional baggage handlers.
Ongoing electrical repairs are also underway to airport lifts, to enable full access to all visitors.
It comes as the national carrier admitted today that its call centre was overwhelmed by demand for information when the storm hit Auckland last Friday.
Aviation commentator Irene King said it's "unacceptable that people are left in the dark".
Air New Zealand said tens of thousands of passengers are now disrupted worldwide but the airline's focus is on 9000 displaced international travellers.
"We've actually brought 400 call centre staff back into the airline in the last few months and that has been going well, and the call wait times have been going down," Captain Dave Morgan, Air NZ's chief safety officer, said.
"But as I say, we were completely overwhelmed as a result of the calls that came in from Friday night, and just working our way through.
"Our focus is on those customers who have been displaced, we are very concerned for them and we want to get them away as quickly as possible."
Today saw 25,000 passengers board flights in Auckland – the equivalent of the numbers who travelled on Boxing Day.
Some airlines have put bigger planes on their flights to Auckland and this will also help ease the backlog.
But there's no indication yet when the situation will be fully resolved, and all disrupted passengers will be at their final destinations.
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