She didn’t say what caused the alarm.

One passenger sent the Herald a photo of fellow travellers waiting on the tarmac between a boarding gate exit and plane.

Another said the airport was still evacuated when they arrived at 8.15am, and they then waited another 15 minutes to enter the terminal.

“There was plenty of ‘chaos’ for a wee while but then everything cleared pretty quickly”, Bruce Bradburn said in an email to the Herald.

“Our flight to Blenheim at 9.25 was delayed only by 30 minutes! So it has all cleared very quickly.”

Nelson MP Rachel Boyack was also among those affected, posting a video to X of people outside the terminal as alarms blared in the background.

“Fire Drill over – hopefully was just a drill! Now Airport chaos begins!”, she wrote in a subsequent update.

A fellow air passenger told Stuff they understood a sprinkler had gone off in a cafe.

The evacuation was now causing delays, the passenger said.

“My plane half boarded and now we can’t leave because 25 passengers haven’t boarded. It’s gonna be chaos today.”