Patience was wearing thin for some by now desperate holidaymakers caught in the backlog of passengers stranded after cancelled flights at the weekend, with flights in and out of the resort fully booked for several days.
Some passengers were upbeat about their unscheduled bus rides to or from Christchurch, Invercargill or Dunedin to connect with flights, while others took their heat out on airline, rental car or coach transport company staff.
All up 10 flights in and out of the resort yesterday were affected, with five flights, two Qantas and three Air New Zealand flights, cancelled.
They were mostly morning flights with some flights making it out in the afternoon.
One Air New Zealand flight had to return to Christchurch after bad weather made it impossible to land even with the airline's new Required Navigational Performance technology, which enabled aircraft to fly into Queenstown with visibility as low as 153m.
Other flights were diverted to Invercargill Airport and transported to Queenstown by bus.
Air New Zealand's Queenstown Airport manager Dave Whitaker said there had been some "pretty major disruption" again yesterday with most flights in and out of Queenstown already full following the weekend's weather chaos. About 350 passengers were transported out of Queenstown by bus yesterday because flights in and out of Queenstown were "chocka" for the next few days.
"We've had a huge amount of backlog — we've put them on buses to Dunedin, Christchurch and Invercargill today, we're slowly feeding people out," he said.
Irishman James Fowler was stranded in Queenstown but had to get back to work in Auckland today.
He said his travel plans were delayed after driving to Invercargill for a new flight, but it was a blessing in disguise as he got to see more of the South Island.
Aucklander Tina Earl and her husband, who had to be back in Auckland by today, hired a car to drive to Invercargill, but she said the scenic drive was worth it. They offered Mr Fowler a ride to Invercargill.
Aucklanders Virginia and Andrew Clarke had been waiting on a Qantas flight since Saturday afternoon.
"Qantas pretty much left us stranded … we had no information except an 0800 number, where I got some guy … in Australia who had no idea what happened," Mr Clarke said.
A Johnston's Coachlines spokeswoman said they had transported hundreds of passengers since Friday and at one stage "ran out of buses".
A severe weather warning was renewed yesterday with snow showers particularly expected in Otago, Southland and Canterbury.
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