Benjamin Boyce, 33, Bryce Casey, 32, and Andrew Robinson, 26, appeared in Manukau District Court and will reappear on October 18.

Earlier today, police held a meeting with the producers of television show Wannaben over the incident in which a man – believed to be Casey – dressed as a pilot approached staff at the domestic air terminal to try to get into a restricted area.

He was wearing a white shirt with gold-banded epaulets, blue trousers, and a dark cap with a silver-winged badge.

Staff challenged him when he failed to show proper identification and he left the terminal building in his disguise shortly after 2.30pm.

Boyce, formerly of Pulp Sport, is the star of Wannaben comedy, Casey is a DJ for radio station The Rock and Robinson is a television producer.

The trio face charges under a section of the Civil Aviation Act.

MediaWorks was not privy to details of the shoot before it took place on Saturday.

We have subsequently spoken to the production company about the incident, and are satisfied that the company did not intend to breach airport security, nor create a major security alert.

The three Yoink Productions staff involved, Ben Boyce, Bryce Casey and Andrew Robinson, alerted police as soon as they realised there was concern and are being fully cooperative.

The matter is now before the courts and does not affect the show as scheduled for this week, which is a rugby-themed one-off Wanna-Ben special.

Obviously we would never encourage or condone any illegal activity. We will be monitoring the progress of this matter through the courts and making decisions accordingly.

Ben Boyce has asked that the following statement be included on behalf of himself and Yoink Productions.

“I am so sorry for all the trouble this has caused. We did not intend to breach security or cause any worry or concern. This was an attempt at humour which we fully accept was misplaced. We did try to contact the police as soon as we could to tell them there was no threat.

“I cannot say how sorry we all are.”