Story: Strikes and labour disputes

These passengers are securely strapped in and fitted with earmuffs for their flight across Cook Strait in an air force Hercules during a 1983 strike by seafarers and waterfront workers. The unions were protesting against the presence in Wellington Harbour of the nuclear-armed American warship USS Texas. During this and other strikes that kept the Cook Strait car ferries in port, the government used air force planes to fly passengers and their vehicles from Wellington to the air force base at Woodbourne, near Blenheim. These flights, known as Operation Pluto, cost much more than a regular ferry crossing.