Air New Zealand widebody airliner visitors to Wellington have over the years been primarily limited to the Boeing 767's and more recently Boeing 777-300's on promotional visits carrying no passengers or the Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner visit a while ago on a charter flight. However the backlog of passengers created by Wellington airport being closed with low cloud/mist/fog from late morning 29 March through until the early hours of 30 March saw the national carrier provide additional capacity through the scheduling of extra Airbus A320 services and most notably the operation of a Boeing 777-200 for the very first time. Correction thanks to Evan - The 777-200 was utilised post the Christchurch 2011 earthquake and was used Christchurch-Wellington. I'll have to hunt out the details when I have time!
ZK-OKG arrived in Wellington just before noon 30 March from Auckland as NZ6149 and departed 90+ minutes later heading back to Auckland as NZ6150. This domestic operation follows last week's addition of the type flying between Christchurch and Auckland to cater for demand associated with concerts staged by singer Adele.
The fog enveloping Wellington airport 29 March saw the first time SQ291 from Singapore and Canberra be forced to divert with Boeing 777-200 9V-SQJ ending up in Auckland and then positioning back to Canberra under the same flight number.
For those curious about the sea fog phenomenon that usually occurs in the summer months check out http://blog.metservice.com/Wellington-Airport-Sea-Fog
