Nelson couple take long way home from Thailand

MARTIN DE RUYTER/Nelson Mail

LONG HAUL: Ian and Clare Morrison at Nelson Airport after a 32-hour trip home.

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Atawhai couple Ian and Claire Morrison are well used to travel disruptions but they were happy to be home on Thursday after a three-day flight delay in Thailand made them "just a little anxious".

Passenger flights out of Bangkok were scheduled to resume today after anti-government protesters agreed to end an eight-day airport blockade that has stranded hundreds of thousands of travellers, including more than 200 New Zealanders.

However, Mr Morrison said the experience did not dampen the couple's three-week holiday.

"It is just one of those things when you travel; things get interrupted. Thai people are just so helpful and welcoming."

The couple were travelling with seven friends from Mr Morrison's Lincoln College graduating class of 1971. The group were in Chiang Mai in northern Thailand when they discovered that their travel plans might change. "It is lucky we were travelling in a group, so we could bounce ideas off each other," Mr Morrison said.

On Sunday, he contacted Thai Airways in Chiang Mai, which said it could get a flight out of U-Tapao military airport on Tuesday.

They then made the eight-hour van trip to Bangkok. "One person got a little nervous when the New Zealand Embassy said people should not go to Bangkok; that was the day we were going to Bangkok," Mr Morrison said.

In the capital, a convention centre was being used as a makeshift ticketing and baggage check for flights leaving U-Tapao, two hours out of Bangkok.

"We got on a bus which took us straight on to the tarmac.

"We texted our daughter on Tuesday saying, `The long day begins'. We didn't know how long it was going to be."

The Morrison family have been in hairy situations overseas before. Daughter Helen was in New York heading towards the World Trade Centre on September 11, 2001. Four years later, their other daughter Alison was in London when terrorists attacked subway trains.

"We are no strangers to interruptions," Mrs Morrison said.

Mrs Morrison said there was a big cheer when the plane lifted off the runway at U-Tapao. "As soon as the nose went up, some people started and then gradually, everyone caught on."

Almost half of the New Zealanders caught up in the past week's chaos at Bangkok's airports have either left Thailand or made arrangements to do so soon. However, an air force Hercules on standby in nearby Kuala Lumpur will remain in the region until it is certain that commercial flights will be sufficient to take the remaining Kiwis home.

The Association of Thai Travel Agents has predicted a fall of 1 million tourists in the November-March high season due to a rush of cancellations, costing the industry more than $5.3 billion in revenue.