Enormously heavy rainfall has meant that New Zealand's Auckland Airport had to be temporarily closed from Friday. The water was ankle-deep in some areas of the terminal, making them unusable.

Not only the airport was affected by the effects of a storm, but also numerous roads in the New Zealand city were impassable. A concert by Elton John that was supposed to take place at the stadium was canceled for security reasons. The airport was completely closed until Saturday afternoon, but so far only partial operations could be started. The damage caused to technology and substance cannot be quantified at this time.

Due to the closure of the airport, numerous flights had to be canceled or diverted. Auckland Airport informed, among other things, via the homepage and social media platforms that operations are temporarily not possible due to the unusability of some parts of the terminal. The passengers were expressly asked not to appear at the international terminal building for the time being.

Some machines switched to other airports. An Emirates-operated Airbus A380 flight decided to turn back. After a flight time of around 13 hours, the long-haul aircraft touched down safely at Dubai Airport.

Completely unrelated to the flooding, another problem has arisen in Auckland. The airport said the runway lighting was badly damaged by an incoming plane. The repair work is ongoing, but also because of this shortage, capacity is temporarily limited, especially at night.