Kiwi travellers claim they were held on an Emirates aircraft for five hours at Auckland International Airport without proper food or air conditioning, describing the experience as ‘traumatic’. 

Sylwia Polc, a passenger on board Emirates flight EK449, said she had booked the flight, due to depart Auckland at 9 pm on January 7, as she urgently needed to get to Poland for a funeral. 

Instead, she was held on the plane for five hours, before it was cancelled at 1.30 am, rescheduled for the following night then delayed further. 

“It was literally the worst travel I’ve ever had,” said Polc who said she almost missed the funeral. 

“Everyone boarded and then around 9 pm, when we were supposed to take off, they said there was some technical issue, so we’ll have a half an hour delay,” Polc said. 

Thirty minutes later, they were told it would be another 45 minutes and Polc said passengers on the fully loaded plane felt the aircon switch off. 

“People were boiling it was like 40 degrees,” Polc said. “Little babies looked like they were overheating, their faces were all red”. 

Eventually, crew opened a door but Polc said it was still “super hot” as the air didn’t flow through the cabin. 

Over the following four hours, one passenger told the Herald they were provided a small bag of chips while others said they were not offered anything to eat. 

At 1 am, four hours after the scheduled departure, the captain announced they were ready to leave. 

“The door was closed, and the plane was ready to take off,” Polc said, but it was too little too late; Auckland Airport’s 1.30 am curfew had begun and the runway was closed for several hours. 

Emirates spokesperson said the airline apologised for the inconvenience caused and said a technical fault delayed departure. 

“Emirates flight EK449 from Auckland to Dubai on 7 January was delayed due to a technical fault,” said a spokesperson. The airline did not respond to further questions about how long passengers were held on the aircraft and whether they were provided food or air conditioning. 

Auckland International Airport's runway curfew provides a time when important maintenance and safety work can be done. 

At 2 am, all passengers were forced to go through customs, and passport control and collect their bags, as if they’d arrived in Auckland, despite having gone nowhere. 

By 3 am, Polc said passengers were through customs but she had to wait another hour in a queue to get a voucher for a taxi and hotel in Ellerslie. She arrived at 4.30 am and got a room but passengers such as Ned Marks were not so lucky. 

Passengers sent to fully booked hotels 

Marks and his new wife were heading to Morocco for a four-day honeymoon and booked to fly from Auckland to Dubai then onto Casablanca in Morocco where they’d booked a train to Marrakech. 

Like Polc, Marks said they were stuck in the aircraft for 5 hours. However, when they were given a hotel voucher at 4.30 am, they were sent to the Pullman Hotel. When they arrived, along with 15 other passengers, the hotel said they had no available rooms. 

After organising their own transport to another hotel and catching four hours of sleep, Marks returned to the airport at 1 pm to check in for the 5 pm flight. 

Check-in for the replacement flight took hours according to several passengers. 

Yet, when waiting at the gate, Marks and others were told there was another delay. 

“At that point, everyone lost it”, Polc said. At 8 pm, the flight departed and Polc said the crew were amazing during the journey and the captain appeared very upset about the disruption. 

However, for many travellers, the disruption wasn’t over. 

Connecting flights rebooked with additional layovers 

Marks said they begged Emirates to change their second leg to arrive in Marrakesch, as they’d long missed their train connection, as well as a full day of their honeymoon but Emirates refused. 

A spokesperson for the airline did confirm that “passengers with connecting flights had been rebooked on other Emirates flights” but passengers such as Sue McCannon said their new flights included additional stopovers and long layovers. 

“We had been rebooked but instead of flying to Dubai and onto Manchester, now flying Dubai, Frankfurt and then Manchester with a 14-hour wait in Dubai,” McCannon said, which resulted in a 56-hour journey home. 

Others, like 17-year-old solo traveller Liliian Krause, made their connecting flights but said there was very little support. 

When the first flight was delayed, the young German said the uncertainty made her anxious but she was too exhausted to feel it. 

“Since I was travelling alone and I am quite young I was s****ing my pants but at the same time way too tired to be scared,” she said. After reaching Dubai, she claimed there was “no one to speak with and no one cared”. 

Polc described the event as traumatic, especially given her reason for travelling. 

“I’m not even in the right state of mind for travel and I chose the airlines because I want to be quick back to Europe,” Polc said. 

Safely in Poland, she received an email from Emirates apologising for the event and offering 250,000 ‘points’, which Polc estimated to be worth $400. 

“Obviously, no one is happy with it, after all we had to go through”.