Passengers scheduled to fly out of Samoa for Auckland on Sunday evening on an Air New Zealand aircraft had their flight cancelled after a bird strike incident. 

Air New Zealand passengers at the Faleolo International Airport were made aware of their flight's cancellation on Sunday evening by the airport ground staff. 

Responding to questions from the Samoa Observer on Monday, Air New Zealand's Chief Operational Integrity and Safety Officer, David Morgan confirmed the mishap that led to the flight's cancellation while emphasising that bird strikes are "not uncommon". 

"Yes, that’s correct, [flight] NZ999 from Apia to Auckland was cancelled yesterday [Sunday] due to a bird strike," said Mr. Morgan. "Our aircraft had to undergo mandatory inspections.

"But despite our engineer's best efforts, this was unable to be completed in time to arrive prior to Auckland Airport's curfew. Bird strikes are not uncommon. 

"Aircraft are designed with this in mind and our pilots are trained for these scenarios. When a bird strike is suspected, our engineering team will complete a full aircraft inspection to ensure it is safe to continue service."

Mr. Morgan also confirmed that the New Zealand airline had tried its best to minimise the impact of the cancellation on the affected passengers. 

In a bid to address the backlog, brought on by the flight cancellation, Air New Zealand operated a recovery service on Monday which departed Samoa at 11 am (Samoa local time) from Faleolo and arrived in Auckland at 3.10 pm. 

"All customers were either issued a new ticket for today [Monday] or their airfare refunded," added Mr. Morgan.

A bird strike is a collision between a bird and an aircraft that is in flight or on a take-off or landing roll. The term is often expanded to cover other wildlife strikes with bats or ground animals. For smaller aircraft, significant damage may be caused to the aircraft structure and all aircraft, especially jet-engined ones, are vulnerable to the loss of thrust which can follow the ingestion of birds into engine air intakes. This has resulted in a number of fatal accidents.