“Our teams spent several hours attempting to safely locate and remove the bird before departure, however, despite their best efforts, they were unable to do so,” McGraw told the Herald.
“As a result, the service was cancelled in order for our engineering and maintenance teams to perform a more extensive search.”
McGraw said the decision to cancel the service was made with the safety of passengers and crew in mind, and thanked customers for their patience and understanding over the disruption.
Affected passengers were informed of the disruption over email.
“To ensure the safe operation of your service, the bird needed to be located,“ a spokesperson told passengers.
“This could not be completed in time for your departure today.”
Harry, a passenger booked on yesterday’s ill-fated flight, later told Newstalk ZB’s Marcus Lush Nights the bird allegedly left New Zealand on the plane to Perth the day prior before returning to Auckland.
Citing information from an undisclosed source, Harry said the bird was only noticed by crew during pre-flight checks.
“It’s the first time that I’ve ever heard of a bird on the aeroplane,” he said.
“The aeroplane’s been in engineering, and they’ve pulled significant parts of the cockpit equipment and furnishings apart trying to find the thing and they can’t find it.”
Harry said the bird most likely made its way on board quietly while a cabin door was open, such as during a turnaround, given passengers typically use air bridges to board both in Auckland and Perth.
“As far as I’m aware, they still haven’t found it.”
The airline said the disruption had since been “resolved”, with the aircraft returned to service this morning to fly passengers from Auckland to Denpasar on NZ290.
The bird’s fate remains unknown.
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