On Saturday, having waited in their hotel for two days for Suvarnabhumi Airport to reopen, the 26-year-old Highlanders player and girlfriend Rebecca Connor (24) decided to "take a punt" and caught a taxi to the U-Tapao military air base, about 150km east of Bangkok. The pair had been in Thailand on a three-week holiday.
With no way to get information in Thailand, they had heard by cellphone from friends and family in New Zealand that flights were taking off from the air base.
"We thought we might as well give it a go . . ."
At U-Tapao the "most unbelievable" sight greeted them.
About 4000 people, all also wanting to leave Thailand, crowded the small terminal, which Mr Kennedy estimated to be about the same size as Dunedin's old terminal.
In an unexpected stroke of luck, their Malaysian Airlines flight from two days earlier was there.
The scenes at the airport were chaotic, Mr Kennedy said.
It took about three hours to check in, another three to go through customs and several more to board.
"It was incredibly tense. We had our packs on our backs and were pushing for about four hours. [Other visitors trying to leave] were really aggressive. They were rude and yelling at everyone."
There were some New Zealanders on their flight, but the people at the air base were mostly from other countries, he said.
When they finally arrived in Kuala Lumpur on Sunday, they had missed their connecting flight by an hour, so had to stay there for another two days.
They felt relieved and lucky to be home, Mr Kennedy said last night from Dunedin International Airport.
"It was pretty epic . . . There was quite a lot of tension . . . You can tell that the longer this goes on [the different groups] are going to clash."
