The decision was made to fly the Boeing 747-400 back to Auckland with
only the 13 crew and in-flight service director on board. An airline
spokesman said the cost of flying the aircraft home without passengers
would have been "up to $50,000".

Somebody's arithmetic is more than a bit suspect... Two ways of
looking at this, but for starters, it is a 6500 mile mission, so about
12 hours, and about 240,000 pouns of Jet A, or about 37,000 gallons,
at current rates that is about 33,000USD just for the fuel. That says
nothing about landing fees, maintenance, or anything else.

The other way is to look at NZ's ASM cost. It is about 11 US cents,
and that puts the price at about 280,000USD.

Either way, NO WAY IT CAN BE DONE FOR ONLY $50,000



Mr Sims said the passengers due to fly on NZ3 would have experienced
delays of up to four hours.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/storydispl...ection=general