The long and frustrating wait for passengers whose bags didn't turn up on Monday morning on Air New Zealand's first non-stop 17-hour flight from New York to Auckland is continuing.
Flight NZ1 left New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport at 11:20pm on Saturday (US time) and arrived at 8:32am on Monday morning (NZ time).
On Tuesday afternoon, an Air NZ spokesperson apologised again to those affected.
"We have the bags here in Auckland and are working to reunite them with our customers today, so they can start enjoying their time in Aotearoa," Air NZ Chief Operating Officer Alex Marren told Newshub.
"We know our customers were incredibly excited to get on the very first New York to Auckland flight and we are sorry it wasn't all plain sailing."
On Monday, one passenger told Newshub the experience on the flight was "perfect" but around 40 to 50 people were affected with their bags left in New York.
Passenger Joan Lladó told Newshub he's still yet to receive his bags over 25 hours after touching down in Auckland.
"We haven't received the bags yet and we don't know when they will arrive," he told Newshub on Tuesday morning.
Lladó told Newshub Air NZ said to "wait" and if he buys clothes while waiting for his luggage they will refund him the cost of the items.
Lladó is travelling with Lucía Teva who told Newshub on Monday "we want our stuff, we want our clothes".
"We have nothing to wear, nobody is helping us, [we are] just doing administration on documents and we are a bit lost," Teva said.
Teva told Newshub on Monday she wasn't sure how long it will take for them to be reunited with their luggage.
"I want to cry. This was our first time doing an international trip because we are from Europe and we were always travelling in Europe and it was fine and now the experience is really bad for us," Teva said.
Another passenger on the flight from New York whose luggage also went missing said they were told their bags will arrive on Tuesday.
"We've been told they are going to arrive tomorrow [Tuesday] morning, I think we have to take that at face value. It's pleasing they at least know where they are I guess because there is a lot of them [bags] have gone missing," the passenger told Newshub on Monday.
"I think the problem lies at the JFK end, it was not the best check-in experience and overall teething issues have probably contributed to that, so it's a bit disappointing.
"The flight itself was great, can't fault the Air NZ team, it's just one of those unfortunate things."
