As the situation in Hong Kong intensifies, the impact it's having on Kiwi travellers is becoming increasingly serious.
The city is a popular destination and stopover location for Kiwi travellers. Upwards of 1,000 New Zealanders pass through Hong Kong airport every day.
August is the peak period for New Zealanders to travel to the UK or Europe, so every day the protests continue the delays and the backlog gets worse.
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Each flight cancellation halts the travel of around 350 people, and with flights at near capacity thos 350 people have to be rebooked on other flights that are already almost completely full, so the knock on effect grows rapidly.
The longer these disruptions continue, if flights continue to be delayed and/or cancelled and depending on how long it takes to clear the backlog, the number of passengers that will be affected will continue to grow.
How bad is the backlog?
Going by the figures that aircraft usually travel at around 80 percent capacity and averaging out the number of seats on each flight to 300, with upwards of 300 flights cancelled every day the airport is disrupted, then this creates a backlog of 72,000 after just one day.
Each of those 72,000 need to be rebooked on flights that are almost already full.
Brent Thomas from House of Travel said corporate travellers are deferring any non-essential trips to or via Hong Kong until later in the year.
"The longer this continues the greater the disruption for all concerned. The situation is fluid and people should register on the Government’s Safe Travel website and keep in touch with their travel agent," he said.
Last week Flight Centre said there had been a 25 percent drop in Kiwi's going to Hong Kong in July compared to the same period last year.
Air New Zealand's Tuesday morning flight from Hong Kong was cancelled, but the airline expects to be able to operate the service again tomorrow morning
Newshub.
