Chaos after airport bomb scare

Some passengers were left too scared to fly after a bomb threat caused disruption at Dunedin International Airport last night.

Roads into the airport were closed, travellers, workers and visitors were evacuated from the terminal without being told why, and flights were delayed.

The police-ordered evacuation was in response to a threat to an Air New Zealand plane bound for Dunedin from Auckland via Wellington.

Police said they were alerted to the "non-specific security threat" about 7pm.

The flight, NZ459, later landed in Dunedin without incident.

Flights are operating as normal today, the airport's website shows.

Police provided little more information about the threat last night, but asked anyone who might have seen suspicious behaviour in the vicinity of the women's toilets at Wellington Airport during the late afternoon or early evening to contact them.

Police alerted Dunedin airport and airline authorities, but passengers on the flight, visitors and other travellers remained confused, and irritated.

Some spoke of bizarre experiences with armed police.

A taxi driver, who asked not to be named, said two flights arrived after 8pm within about about 10 minutes of each other. He was waiting for a passenger from from the Wellington flight.

"Police with holstered guns came running in," he said.

Detectives were circling the perimeter of the airport, and four ambulances and fire service personnel arrived. The taxi driver said he was surprised at the lack of communication.

"Nobody told anybody anything," he said.

He said he spoke to airport staff outside, who were "petrified".

"They would not tell them what was going on.

"I asked a cop - he wouldn't reply."

While that was happening, people were disembarking and collecting their baggage. The man said he left the airport of his own accord.

Susan More, a passenger on flight NZ459 from Wellington, said the plane landed at 8.15pm, parked at the terminal as normal. Nothing was said to passengers on the plane or when they disembarked.

"There were at least four ambulances and fire engines [parked outside the terminal], but no-one parked in the pick-up lane."

She phoned her husband, to learn he was outside a police cordon about 15 minutes' walk from the terminal, so she joined many pedestrians heading to the cordon to meet their transport.

The lack of information was infuriating, she said.

"I just can't understand it. Why weren't the police shuttling people out?" Another passenger said if there was a threat on the flight, passengers knew nothing of it, and the cabin crew and pilots showed no signs of concern.

A woman waiting to fly to Auckland said even when people were evacuated from the terminal about 9pm, they were given no reason.

"We weren't really scared.

"We were all just confused because we didn't know what was going on."

After a while, they were told it was a bomb threat, she said. Some people decided not to fly last night after being shaken by the incident and had rebooked.

After confusion about when flights would resume, the plane was given the all-clear at 10.40pm and the Auckland flight left at 11.23pm.

Senior Sergeant Steve Aitken said airport security was the incident controller and the responsibility for informing people would have been theirs and the airline's.

An Air New Zealand spokeswoman said the airline had followed standard procedure when it received the threat. It was later found to have no substance.

She said the responsibility for informing passengers and those in the terminal was that of Dunedin airport.

Airport chief executive John McCall could not be reached for comment last night.