A British Airways flight from a tourist hotspot was forced to divert in the early hours to land at Gatwick rather than Heathrow
A British Airways jet was forced to land at Gatwick(Image: Ceri Breeze via Getty Images)
A British Airways flight has been forced to divert from Heathrow to Gatwick after falling foul of strict rules over its landing time.
The BA707 flight from holiday hotspot Larnaca was diverted to the London airport after the four hour journey, according to AirNav Radar.
The flight had to be diverted to Gatwick after missing the curfew at Heathrow.
The plane left the Cyprus airport at 9.32pm, over three hours after scheduled take off.
It then landed at Gatwick at 12.12am on Tuesday.
Flights heading to Heathrow are often diverted to Gatwick or other regional hubs if they miss Heathrow’s strict nighttime curfew.
Heathrow enforces rigorous restrictions on movements late at night in order to reduce noice pollution for the millions of residents that live under its flight paths.
The core curfew means that scheduled flights are heavily restricted to land and take off between 11pm and 6am.
The airport operates under a strict ‘night quota’ system between 11pm and 6am which limits both the absolute number of flights allowed to land and the total amount of aircraft noise allowed.
Unless an official emergency is declared then air traffic control will deny landing rights past the curfew, forcing a diversion.