Air New Zealand Pilots Reportedly Brawled In SF Hotel Over Union Disagreement

An argument between two pilots for Air New Zealand reportedly escalated into fisticuffs earlier this month at their layover hotel in San Francisco, which led to one or both sustaining injuries and the return flight being extremely delayed.

We just heard this story this week about two Air New Zealand pilots who had a physical altercation in San Francisco that led to an SFO-to-Aukland flight being 14 hours delayed.

As View From the Wing reports, the captain of the plane had a verbal disagreement, possibly about union issues, while in the cockpit on the way to San Francisco. The two junior pilots in the cockpit — the first and second officers — apparently reported the captain to their superiors after landing, and this may have led to the physical confrontation that happened at a San Francisco hotel.

Air New Zealand has said little about the incident other than to cite the delay being caused by a pilot's "sickness," and stressing that no incident occurred during the flight itself.

We can infer that the senior pilot, the captain, was injured in a physical fight with one of the junior pilots, and according to Stuff, a Kiwi blog, they flew back to New Zealand on separate flights.

The incident led to outgoing Aukland flights being delayed both on September 6 and September 7 — with a crew that had flown in on a different flight filling in for this one on the flight they were meant to go out on, on the 6th.

A new pilot had to dead-head to San Francisco to captain the September 7 flight, which led to the 14-hour delay, because of mandatory crew rest.

Per Stuff, passengers on the flight that finally left just after midnight on September 8 say that Air New Zealand went to great ends to make all the passengers on the delayed flight happy, even providing hotel accommodations above the usual $250/night maximum.

"They were falling over themselves to help everyone as there were so few passengers," one traveler told the publication.

Only 19 passengers ended up flying back in Economy on the September 7/8 flight, and they were reportedly told to find any empty row they wanted to stretch out in.