Overseas Aviation

Air New Zealand has added a charter flight between Auckland and Melbourne to get another 300 fans to Sunday's Cricket World Cup final.

It will be a lightning trip. The Boeing 777-200ER service leaves Auckland at 8.30am on Sunday and flies out of Melbourne at 2am on Monday.

Return seats are priced at $991. The price of Air New Zealand seat-only return flights between Auckland and Melbourne in April ranges from $466 to $1075.

Comment has been sought from the airline on whether it expected the flight to be rowdy and whether there was anything fans might need to bear in mind regarding alcohol consumption if they were going over to soak up the atmosphere and could be tempted to have a few too many.

Civil Aviation Authority spokesman Mike Richards said airlines could prevent passengers boarding flights if they were intoxicated, but they were not obliged to.

"There are regulations concerning unruly passenger behaviour and that is something that is controlled by the pilot in command if it happens in flight.

"It is a tricky one because you have got people who are obviously jolly and want to have a good time, but there is a responsibility to behave."

Passengers were required under civil aviation rules to obey the instructions of crew, he said.

"If they said 'that's it stop', then people obviously have to."

The service is in addition to extra Air New Zealand flights that have already sold out.

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The airline on Wednesday showed no availability on flights from Auckland to Melbourne until Monday. But on Thursday morning it was also offering a Saturday-Monday return between Auckland and Melbourne through alliance partner Virgin Australia, for $1600. Jetstar also has flights available on the route those days, priced at $1546.

Qantas has added three extra return flights between Auckland and Melbourne and another between Auckland and Sydney. The Boeing 737-800 services will leave on Saturday and return on Monday, with some seats still available priced from $1570.

An ICC Cricket World Cup spokesman said that a final "very small number" of tickets to the game went on sale at 2pm on Wednesday which sold out within five minutes.

But the ICC has a facility on its website that lets people sell tickets they no longer want. Depending on the result of Thursday's semi-final there may be disappointed Australian or Indian fans offloading tickets there.

House of Travel commercial manager Brent Thomas said on Wednesday that another option was to fly to Sydney and then fly or travel overland to Melbourne, where accommodation was still available.

"If you are prepared to take two flights it does open up a myriad of ways to go about this," he said.