An Airport in Japan recently made headlines for not letting a Japan Airlines plane from landing for arriving 10 minutes late. As per reports, the plane was flying from Tokyo's Haneda airport to the Fukuoka Airport situated in Hakata-ku, Fukuoka prefecture and was carrying 335 passengers. The plane started late from the originating airport, resulting in a delay in the arrival at the destination airport, which has a final landing cutoff of 10 pm. The plane arrived at 10.10 PM and was made to take a U-Turn and return back to the Tokyo Airport situated 1,000 km apart.


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As per a local newspaper, Asahi Shimbun, the plane was scheduled to take off at 6.30 PM on February 19, 2023 but was delayed until 8 PM, due to unknown reasons. Situated more than 1,000 kilometres apart, the plane covered the distance in 2.10 hours, and arrived in Fukuoka 10 minutes after the final landing cutoff time of 10 PM. The airport returned the plane back and 335 passengers onboard the flight had to travel another five hours back to Tokyo.


The report further states that the delay in arriving back was caused due to a brief layover at the Kansai Airport for maintenance and refuelling. The plane landed back at the Tokyo's Haneda Airport at 2.50 AM. The airline arranged a hotel for the passengers to stay, and a flight took the passengers to Fukuoka on the morning of February 20, 2023.


As per the airport guidelines in Fukuoka, no planes are allowed to land after 10 PM to avoid disturbing people living nearby. While the rule can be relaxed in case of a bad weather and other unavoidable delays, officials at the decided that the Japan Airlines delay was unavoidable.


Interestingly, aviation analytics firm OAG, Japan Airlines is the second most punctual airline in the world with an OTP of 88.07 per cent, while Tokyo's Haneda Airport is among the most punctual airports in the world. The Japanese transportation system, including Trains, Metro and Aviation is considered to be the most punctual in the world.