
Around 40 passengers returning from JFK were left without luggage after a decision by the carrier to unload excess luggage.
The plane which took off from John F Kennedy International at 11.20pm local time touched down shortly before 8.30am this morning.
The seventeen-hour trip is the longest flown by Air New Zealand and its 787 Dreamliner fleet, further extended by an hour delay into AKL.
Air New Zealand's chief operating officer Alex Marren said the cession some bags were left behind on Eastern seaboard due to adverse flying conditions.
"Unfortunately, given additional fuel requirements due to adverse weather, some customer bags were unable to be loaded in New York and we are getting them to New Zealand as soon as possible" she said.
Luggage was already on its way back to New Zealand but could take up to two days to be reunited with owners.
"We are in touch with customers to update them and reunite them with their bags. We're sorry for any inconvenience this has caused."
The new US service was launched on Saturday, with NZ2 being Air New Zealand's first direct service to the east coast of the US.
However, at 17 hours and 35 minutes the return leg of the trip NZ1 is an hour and a half longer than the Eastbound flight. This puts it firmly as the fourth longest flight in the world.
Covering 15343 kilometres in just under 18 hours, the Auckland bound service faces different prevailing weather patterns to the JFK route.
A spokesperson for Air New Zealand said that the inbound flight to Auckland is always longer due to prevailing headwinds, but in this case the flight path was to avoid a weather system.
This was a bad start to the inagural flight said Met Servie meteorologist Lewis Ferris, but flight schedulers had had to factor for the known sub-tropical jet streams.
"It won't always have the same impact on flights as it can fluctuate in strength and position but it is a semi-permanent feature."
Delays in from New York might be a common occurance.
This could be a fly in the ointment for ambitions to make Auckland a new hub for flights to the Atlantic sea.
Last month Qantas announced it would be launching its own JFK AKL direct service from June next year.
"We think this route will be very popular with Australians given the opportunity to connect via Auckland and it also gives New Zealanders more choice," said the Australian airline's CEO, Alan Joyce.
However Qantas passengers will also have to grapple with the long return leg.