An instrument failure on an Air New Zealand Airbus flight from Queenstown to Auckland caused a four-hour delay in the resort for 125 passengers on Thursday.
One passenger described the situation as a "case study in abysmal PR".
Air New Zealand Public Affairs spokesman Mark Street said the flight, NZ620, was "on taxi" and moving away from the gate at Queenstown Airport at 9.50am when the pilot saw an irregularity in one of the instruments. The aircraft was returned to the gate and the 125 passengers were offloaded from the aircraft.
Mr Street said the passengers were given "food and beverage vouchers" during the four-hour delay and some passengers were moved to other services.
The aircraft was checked by an engineer before it re-entered service, Mr Street said.
However, one of the passengers on board the flight, who did not wish to be named, said the communication from Air New Zealand surrounding the delay was "average at best".
The man, who had also been delayed on Tuesday in Dunedin, said the the plane got to the "end of the runway" before stopping.
"We sat at the end of the runway for 10 minutes and then at 10am they took us back to the terminal."
The man, from Auckland, said Air NZ would not remove passengers' luggage from the plane and gave the passengers "$12 vouchers" for food and beverage to compensate them for the delay.
At 11.30am, there had been no updates from Air NZ within the terminal, until the man went and asked for one to be given.
He had to ask for a second announcement updating passengers again at 1pm, because no-one knew what was going on.
While he said passengers understood "these things happen", they were decidedly unimpressed.
"On Tuesday, I spent an hour on the tarmac in Dunedin ... we weren't allowed off the plane because they had no security people there.
"The mood was quite different because we knew what was happening.
"People are pretty good about it - that's the thing.
"It's not actually that hard for Air NZ to be nice ... but if you wanted to see a case study in abysmal PR, then that was it."
