Hainan Airlines Flight HU786: Cancelled from Auckland & Our Fight for Compensation

In all my years of flying, this is the worst flight disruption and subsequent reimbursement experience I've had. Hainan Airlines cancelled our Auckland to Haikou flight on Boxing Day 2025, didn't give us any rebooking help both in person or online, told us to show up the next day at a certain time - to nothing. We made our own way on holiday, and on return, had Hainan Airlines argue that they did fly the aircraft and they just didn't tell us. We had to file for chargebacks and take Hainan Airlines to the Disputes Tribunal in New Zealand invoking the Montreal Convention to see our money.

Boxing Day, Auckland Airport

The first sign of trouble was at check-in. The Menzies agents were offering Premium Economy upgrades for $200 a pax — which seemed generous until you learned the flight was oversold and they were trying to create some room. We took the upgrade, this would come in incredibly handy for our later fight with the airline.

By the time we got to Gate 16A (yes, the bus one) for boarding, there was a half-hour delay announced for mechanical reasons. About an hour later, we got the announcement everyone dreads - the flight was cancelled. Go back to check-in. Everyone immediately packed up and rushed the way we call came.

The sheep in departures

What nobody tells you is that international departure terminals aren't designed to be exited the same way you came in. The security and immigration checkpoints go one way. The whole crowd of us walked to immigration like a flock of sheep, got turned around by bewildered officers, and walked back to the gate. The staff at the McDonalds must have been so confused. At the gate we had to wait for airside buses, loop around to the international arrivals building, and get manually processed back into New Zealand by immigration staff — because the e-gates had no idea what to do with people who'd technically left but hadn't gone anywhere. Our bags were already on the arrivals belt. They'd never made it to the plane. Kudos to the biosecurity and customs officers, they took a pragmatic stance that the chance of us smuggling in exotic oranges or drugs in the three hours we were airside were quite minimal.

The come back tomorrow counter

Returning to the check in area, there was no counter per-se, we all just made our way back to the area we checked-in, and on the tick of midnight, a poor Menzies check-in agent showed up to a riled up 300 person crowd that had just had their holidays ruined. One by one, they brought us to the counter and explained the flight was cancelled, and we were going to the Jetpark hotel (yes, the infamous one from the covid era). I for one had seen enough of MIQ facilities and wanted to taxi home. They weren't sure and after a bit of back and forth with the staff, they agreed we could do that if we wanted and get it expensed back. Next came the issue of what next. They explained the flight was delayed to 9:30am the next day, and that our seats, etc would remain the same. Everyone just show up in the morning, let's pretend it was a bad dream. We saw most other passengers had gotten emails from Hainan explaining the delay, we hadn't, so asked, and were told quite curtly that emails were working, they had ours, and would let us know if anything changed. Being in travel and knowing there was only one flight a day from Haikou to Shanghai, we asked about our connections and if we can book a different airline, and was told all would be dealt with tomorrow, just come back tomorrow morning! My final feeble attempt at getting a certificate for travel insurance was also met with disdain - did you not hear us?! We got a big line behind you, stop asking questions and show up tomorrow. Fearing the wrath of Menzies agents, we then shuffled over to the poor cousin that was the Hainan Airlines Duty Manager whose phone buzzed non-stop. The duty manager took pity on us, and explained that they hadn't got much from head office, but that if we showed up tomorrow morning, all would be sorted. As soon as I asked about connections, the man was out. He walked off and ignored us for the rest of the early morning.

We called our travel insurance, and ol-classic, the policy exclusions clearly list no coverage when we're still in New Zealand and the airline delays or cancels the flight due to their own causes. I am yet to find a day when travel insurance actually pays, story for another time.

We got a taxi home.

The don't call us airline

I spent the rest of that night trying every channel I could find to rebook.

The Hainan New Zealand phone number is actually a Chinese number that can't be dialled from here. Their Australian number only operates during business hours. Live chat put me in a queue for four hours, then connected me to an agent who said I'd already flown the flight and disconnected. WeChat kept dropping out. Desperate, we tried the rebooking link in another passenger's email was in Chinese and led to a portal where nothing worked. Manage My Booking wouldn't let me in. I tried the WeChat Mini app — also nothing, because the flight showed as cancelled in their system.

By morning, we hadn't spoken to anyone at the airline and were no closer to getting to Shanghai. We just had no sleep to show for it.

I don't think I've ever had a situation where any business was that uncontactable. It takes a bit of effort I'd say!

The ghost flight

After all the commotion and reassurance to show up the next morning, we got to the airport at 7:30am for the 9:30 flight. There was no Hainan Airlines counter. No staff, no signage, nothing on the boards. It was as if they'd packed up overnight and left. Airport staff had no idea. Live chat, again, went nowhere.

An airport employee pointed us toward the China Eastern counter — I suspect he just assumed the Chinese carriers shared staff, which they don't — but it turned out China Eastern had a morning flight to Shanghai. The duty manager there had an exasperated look having explained to several other stranded Hainan passengers that just because she worked for a Chinese airline, doesn't mean she can handle all Chinese airlines. Luckily for us, we were heading to Shanghai, and she was flying to Shanghai.

We stood there and made a decision. We could keep waiting for an airline that had given us no reason to believe they'd show up, or we could buy tickets on this flight and get to Shanghai close to our original schedule. Since the days of being able to buy an actual ticket at the airport are long gone, Trip.com let us book and be ticketed on the flight while check-in was about to close. Amazing! We bought the tickets. China Eastern was excellent. We never heard from Hainan that morning.

What came next

Halfway to Shanghai, I start hassling Hainan Airlines, and finally get a one liner saying to contact their disrupt team via email. I am livid, and explain I want to be reimbursed for my China Eastern tickets, my PE upgrade, and the taxis. Silence... once in Shanghai, we carry on a bit of back and forth. Hainan Airlines trying to explain to us that our return tickets are void because we didn't take the inward flight, us explaining the reason we didn't is because they cancelled them! When we showed up for our return flight at Shanghai Pudong Airport, we were shunted between check-in and ticketing for a solid twenty minutes before my very terrible Mandarin convinced them I was too much of a pain to deal with, and they put us on the flight to Auckland, to save themselves the torture of listening to me. This was unremarkable of-course, though flying Hainan Airlines economy, it's a very comfortable trip.

The $200 "final offer"

Back in Auckland, I email Hainan demanding compensation. Initially they explain that the flight did take off - at 6:30pm that evening, and because of that, we just missed the flight, and weren't eligible for anything. Wait a minute - how can we miss a flight we weren't told about? Silence. On follow up, we also hear nothing back. Eventually I start threatening the Disputes Tribunal, and ask, what is their final offer? They come back - 800RMB per person, so $200 NZD, for each of us, as compensation for the disruption caused. Final offer they say. They also explain the PE upgrade and taxi fares are in review. Not satisfied, I raised a chargeback on my credit card which my bank (ASB), promptly approved. Hainan, as soon as hearing I had filed a chargeback, attempted to refund me the taxi and PE upgrade, caveat being signing a Power of Attorney document stating we agree to that being the compensation! WTF? Pro tip: Put everything on your credit card, the bank sorted me out in about 2 business days and money in my account for the upgrade at least. This left just the taxis and the flights to deal with.

Our friend the Montreal Convention

Given the "final offer", I proceeded to file a claim with the Disputes Tribunal. Now here's an interesting tidbit. Under New Zealand law, the consumer guarantees act (CGA) covers all goods and services provided within New Zealand. International airlines aren't actually covered within this at all! So quoting the CGA doesn't get you very far. However, luckily for us consumers, in the early 2000s, the Clark Government ratified the Montreal Convention 1999 (MC99) in full within the Civil Aviation Act 2003, meaning what applied in the Montreal Convention, applies in NZ law. The good news with this is the MC99 has two specific sections that work in our favour. The first is an airline can be held to jurisdiction in either its home country, or in a destination country, meaning the places it flies to. This meant we had a claim in Auckland, rather than where the ticket was issued being Singapore (even if we purchased in NZD on the Hainan Airlines website). The second element of the MC99 that's important is Article 19, that lays out the compensation when a flight is delayed or cancelled. Again, because New Zealand had enshrined the full MC99 in our laws, the Montreal Convention applied! The bad news is, there are only three previous cases between people v Airlines, and all were nuanced. There wasn't a single open and shut case where an airline had cancelled a flight, a passenger chose to book their own flight, and proceeded to win in court to get the airline to reimburse them. The most likely reason is MC99 has a "mitigation of loss" clause, which means the airline does everything possible to mitigate losses - i.e. booking you on another flight, another airline, etc. The passenger must show they did the same (but up to the airline to prove they didn't). So, from a legal perspective, it looked like we were in the good, just no precedent.

The $1200 partial refund and status upgrade

Within 48 hours of me providing notice to Hainan Airlines that I'd paid the $243 filing fee and was expecting to see them in court, their offer tripled. Suddenly the final offer became without prejudice offer of a refund of the partially unused flights, at $626.21 per person (covering AKL-HAK-PVG one way). I'm unsure how a $200 became this amount, and we immediately said yes as a downpayment, of-course, this doesn't go anywhere near covering purchasing literal last minute seats on Boxing Day to Shanghai, so we were clear we'd accept it, but still pursuing the full amount. I also added interest costs to our filing with the tribunal, which again is not normally awarded, but is present in MC99. It's also worthy to note at this point, Hainan Airlines hadn't paid us a cent. Even the taxi fares hadn't been reimbursed yet. The only monies recovered were the check-in PE upgrades we purchased through our credit card chargeback.

Interestingly, they also offered us an upgrade on their loyalty program. This would be a nice touch if their sign up actually allowed foreign numbers!

Hainan's $6500 concession

The Disputes Tribunal was surprisingly efficient. We filed in early February and they had set a date for 7th April within 10 days. Amusingly, they printed off the PDF of evidence I had filed as part of my claim, then scanned it all up again, and sent it back to me and to Hainan Airlines. I had luckily captured every interaction and detail of our experience in screenshots, emails and logs. Everything from Google Flights to Hainan's live chats. The evidence was overwhelming and they knew what I had. In early March, a month out from the hearing, we get another email from Hainan Airlines - their head office had approved full reimbursement of the China Eastern flights. Internally they broke this down as a full refund of the unused Hainan flights, plus extra compensation to cover the balance for the China Eastern tickets, which was basically our claim. Clearly they had gone through the evidence I had to share, read up on the Montreal Convention and came to their senses. On our end, we had always maintained with the airline we wouldn't pursue interest charges if they settled before end of February, and this came close enough to drop that and settle.

One final barb - given the airline's "promise" of refunding the taxis and the unprejudiced refund of our tickets that never eventuated, I made it clear that the court case wouldn't be withdrawn until funds were settled in our bank account. This is important so we still had a "date" approaching.

Final Settlement

On 14 March, 77 days after the delay, Hainan Airlines paid us the owed $6708 for the replacement flights and taxis. ASB had already refunded us the $400, so our final out of pocket costs for the flight disruption was about $71 in lost interest and $243 for the non-refundable disputes tribunal filing. A small price to pay to hold up our rights. Case closed.

To conclude

Anyway folks, thanks for reading this far, and I hope it was helpful. The key takeaway is this - you are protected by the Montreal Convention - the consumer law for most international airlines. If your flight is like the Hainan Airlines cancelled flight HU786, don't let airlines push you around. If they do, fight back, and fight back fast and hard utilizing the Montreal Convention if applicable. File the claim in court if they stall or mess you around, so the fight happens while a hearing date is looming. Yes you lose the filing fee in court, but it's probably the only way to force their hand faster.

As for Hainan Airlines, a quick google search shows how many people have had problems with Hainan's approach to involuntary delays and cancellations. If you are in this situation, I hope my story above helps you with your fight. Don't back down, back yourself.