Taylor Swift fans fear missing Sydney Eras Tour concert after flight cancellations

Severe storms in and around Sydney on Friday (23 February) resulted in flight cancellations and delays, causing anxiety and disappointment for Taylor Swift fans travelling to the Australian city for the latest leg of the singer’s Eras Tour.

Hours before Swift was due to begin her three-hour marathon set, the first show of a four-gig stint, bad weather led to Airservices Australia, the country’s government aviation agency, limiting the number of Sydney arrivals and departures. As a result, several airlines delayed and cancelled flights, with some Swift fans unable to attend the gig on Friday evening.

That evening, Swifties were briefly evacuated from two areas of Sydney’s Accor Stadium, due to the severe storm weather. This resulted in a delay to the start of the show, with support act Sabrina Carpenter having to skip her set.

Qantas, which had four flights affected, said in a statement that an Airbus A380 would carry 485 passengers from Melbourne to Sydney to try to mitigate the impact of the cancellations.

The airline said: “While this would normally be used to support our international network on flights to places like London and LA, given the incredibly high demand into Sydney today, it is being brought in to support the domestic operation.”

The airline added that, as the customers affected were originally travelling on three separate flights departing from 4pm onwards, it was unlikely that any Swifties travelling for the Friday night concert would have been impacted. A fourth flight was also cancelled, with those customers re-accommodated on other Qantas services on Friday.

Qantas has bought out an international Airbus to ferry customers over to Sydney

(Getty Images)

Airservices Australia, the country’s government aviation agency, told the Guardian that it was “delighted to be assisting our key customer Qantas in ensuring Swifties can get to Sydney before the inclement weather impacts the airport.

“Airborne and ground delays are expected. It is recommended that passengers reach out to their airlines.”

Another airline, Jetstar, isssued a travel alert onFriday warning that flights might be affected by the bad weather. The airline said that they would contact customers whose flights were impacted.

In a statement to the Guardian, Jetstar said that it had added two extra flights from Melbourne and Brisbane on Saturday morning and was offering free changes to earlier or alternative flights from other airports.

“We’re doing everything we can to get affected customers on their way as soon as possible,” Jetstar said.

Virgin said that it was trying to let customers know any updates but added that guests should check their flight status, the outlet reported.

The delays have caused anxiety for some Taylor Swift fans with tickets to the Sydney shows. One fan told ABC’s Brisbane Breakfast radio show that she had to spend AS$700 (£360) on last-minute flights when her travel plans were dashed on Friday.

“I woke up this morning to an email from Virgin saying that my flight this afternoon had been cancelled,” she said.

She was rebooked onto a flight for Sunday, but her concert tickets were for the Saturday night show, she said, according to News.com.au.

“I’ve had to rebook flights with Qantas for tomorrow morning for pretty much double the price of what I originally paid for them,” she said.

A couple from Queensland also experienced flight woes, saying that they felt like they were in a “broken dream” after missing out on Swift’s Friday concert.

The couple told 7News said that when their Virgin flight was cancelled, they booked another to Sydney via Brisbane. After driving three hours to the airport they discovered that the Brisbane leg of the journey was delayed, meaning they would miss their connection to Sydney. The reason for the delay, the airline told the couple, was “crew rest”, they said.