Flights have been cancelled in Sydney during Eras tour

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.

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…