Flights around the country were briefly disrupted today when a communication problem hit Airways, New Zealand’s air navigation service provider. Airways said in a statement that the service outage was caused by a failure of the multiplex communications system that transports voice and telephone information about the network. The outage lasted 15 minutes. As a safety precaution all departing flights were grounded, but airborne flights were able to continue towards their destination, using satellite standby radios. Airways assured ONE News that they had a contingency plan in place and that they were able to continue communication with flights at all times. Flights continued to be displayed on the radar system. Airways said that the problem was not one they have encountered before and they are investigating the incident. Between 50 to 60 flights were affected, mainly in the upper North Island. Services south of Wellington were largely unaffected and the backlog has now been cleared.

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