One Mile At A Time shares about the latest airport curfew drama, this time involving a Condor flight bound for Munich that arrived 10 seconds too late, leading to a diversion and an eight-hour delay. Was that diversion reasonable? Are airport curfews reasonable in general?
Ten Seconds Too Late: Condor A321 Forced to Divert From Munich Airport After Missing Curfew
Let’s look at what happened to a Condor flight on Monday, June 2, 2025:
- Condor flight DE1513 was scheduled to operate from Palma de Mallorca (PMI) to Munich (MUC) using an Airbus A321 (registration D-ATCA).
- The flight was planned to depart at 8:35 pm and arrive in Munich at 10:40 pm.
- Due to delays, primarily from the inbound aircraft, the flight departed Palma de Mallorca at 10:52 pm, over two hours late.
- Munich Airport has a standard curfew at midnight, with possible extensions until 12:30 am under certain circumstances.
- Condor secured an extension to land by 12:30 am.
- The aircraft made good time and began its approach to runway 8R in Munich. However, the pilots had to discontinue the approach because they missed the extended curfew by approximately 10 seconds.
- Denied landing in Munich, the flight was diverted to Hahn Airport (HHN), approximately 233 miles away, landing there at 1:13 am.
- Passengers deplaned at Hahn and collected their luggage.
- Around 3:00 am, they were bused to Frankfurt Airport (FRA), arriving at approximately 4:30 am.
- At 6:50 am, passengers boarded another Condor flight from Frankfurt to Munich, arriving around 8:00 am.
- Passengers, originally scheduled to arrive in Munich at 10:40 pm, reached their destination over nine hours late, enduring an overnight journey without rest.
- The original Airbus A321 was flown from Hahn to Munich at 5:47 am, arriving at 6:29 am, ahead of the passengers.
Was all of this drama really necessary?
On The Matter Of Airport Curfews
I’m not in favor of airprot curfews, period. I realize those who live near airports hold a very different opinion and I realize that curfews are a practical and pragmatic approach to balancing the rights of residents with the commercial interests of a nation and locality in promoting passenger and cargo air travel.
But what happened here was unacceptable: we cannot separate the facts of every particular diversion from blindly enforcing the general rule. Every story matters.
I realize that airlines “cut it close” when delays occur, but I can’t point to anything Condor did wrong here other than not flying fast enough to reach MUC. The alternative (diversion to HHN, followed by an overnight bus ride) was far worse than annoying residents with a landing that was 10 seconds too late.
If “exceptions” are made every time, is the curfew worthless? No, I don’t think so. Because here we are talking about a landing at 00:30:10 instead of 00:30…
Of course, a 10-second exception could quickly become grounds for a 10-minute exception, which could be grounds for a 1-hour exception…I do appreciate that argument.
But I believe that if you choose to live near an airport, you have no reasonable expectation of silence, whether during the day or night. Munich’s current airport opened on May 17, 1992. While I have sympathy for those Bavarians who may have bought homes in Erding North before 1992, those who could not stomach the noise have had more than three decades to relocate.
A practical solution could be a very high surcharge for late landings that could be put into a community development fund rather than an outright ban on late arrivals. But I’m simply not in favor of curfews that are so strictly enforced that diversions like the Condor flight I describe above become necessary.
CONCLUSION
A 10-second delay led to an eight-hour saga for passengers who should have been home in time for bed. While curfews do serve a purpose, this incident highlights the need for greater flexibility and common sense when it comes to enforcing them. No one wins when bureaucracy or “the rules” trumps practicality.
image: Ken Fielding / Flickr
10 seconds?
The Karens near the airport need to get a life
It’s also a tremendous amount of waste for fuel and emissions. Ridiculous, given where everything is headed in our planet.
But, sadly, not even a microscopic droplet in the bucket…. Fasten your seat belt, it’ll be a rough ride ’til the end !
In some cases I imagine the ground crew starts shutting down services around curfew, making it impossible to unload the flight. However when you know you’ve got an incoming plane, that you can see, it seems just petty to deny landing.
Operation hours should reflect the hours there is enough traffic to justify costs
I agree. A curfew on scheduled landings is perfectly reasonable, but exceptions must be made. As you noted, putting a financial penalty on exceptions would prevent them from becoming routine. Aircraft are quieter than they’ve ever been and nobody has to live next to an airport. Upgrade your windows, get a sound machine, take Ambien, or just move out to the country. Cities need airports and sometimes delays happen.
The rules could be modified by having increased landing fees for a certain period after the curfew. For example, midnight curfew and total ban except may days after 12:30. Between 12:00 and 12:30 there are added cost, calculated by the minute between 12:01 and 12:10, higher per minute cost between 12:11 and 12:20, etc.
For example, the first 10 minutes are €1 per minute, second 10 minutes are €100 per minute, third 10 minutes are €500 per minute.
So 10 seconds late is €1 extra. 11 minutes late is €110. 30 minutes late is €6010.
The problem with that idea is that the airlines will gladly pay that extra money in order to not have to divert to another airport and it makes having a curfew at all pointless.
I thought this was shocking until I saw it happened in Germany.
Yep.
Matthew and the three commentators are disagreeing with the policy of airport curfews. That is fine, but the Munich curfew exists and airlines have to operate under its restrictions.
Matthew’s analysis does get to the important issue. If exceptions to a curfew are to be made, how far does it go? 10 seconds deserves an exception. Does 1 minute? 5 minutes? 10 minutes? 1/2 hour? What this does is allow somebody in operations to amend the curfew so instead of a midnight curfew it is now a 12:30 curfew, etc. Under this type of thinking there is no curfew and who and under what other set of rules/procedures now apply to late landings?
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While we all agree that denying boarding was permissible under the circumstances, do you believe it was reasonable considering the plane was seconds away from landing?
I’m not saying it was reasonable; I’m raising the issue of what is reasonable and who gets to decide under what guidelines? What if exceptions were only granted to Lufthansa, or exceptions were only granted by one specific controller?
It’s the same problem when highway patrol officers don’t ticket people who are speeding. How much leeway is granted? By whom? What if it could be shown that only Texas residents were allowed to go 20 mph over the speed limit in Texas without tickets, or if only Ohio residents were ticketed for speeding in Pennsylvania. The moment someone is granted the authority to waive the provision for a curfew, there may not be a curfew.
I see your point, I really do. If you have the time, watch the Seinfeld episode “The Pothole” where Elaine sneaks into a building across the street to get around a Chinese food delivery policy of only delivering up to 1 mile away and she was 1 mile and 50 feet. You have to draw the line somewhere!
Now, THAT being said, if a plane already has a runway assignment and is in landing approach, it should be allowed to complete. The “damage” has already been done, so to speak, in that the plane is overhead already on an approved approach. Any diversion should have been specified BEFORE a runway was assigned.
They already got an extension to 12:30 AM and missed it, seems petty about 10 seconds but once you open that exception others are going to whine about why we couldn’t get one as well. I think the airport was sending a message to Condor to get their act together. A similar incident happened at Brandenberg-Berlin airport about a week ago, Ryanair missed the midnight deadline by 7 minutes and had to divert to another airport.
Doesn’t it make more sense to have the curfew restricted by altitude and time? As many curfews are enforced due to noise concerns, an a321 making a go around is way louder than solely landing. Have a cut off at 1000 ft at 12:30 AM for example, if you’re below you can land, which in this case would’ve allowed the plane to land
What I don’t get is why were the pilots allowed to go on final approach? There is nothing to suggest they slowed down the approach so if ATC let them start the landing process then they should be allowed to land 10sec late or 60sec late.
Hate to be “that guy,” but the Condor flight did benefit from an exception; it applied and secured a 30-minute extension to the landing curfew. So, technically, they weren’t 10 seconds late, they were over 30 minutes late. Matthew, as you say, if you allow exception after exception, then the rule makes no sense. The rule needs to be enforced at some point, and here the airline did get a 30-min grace period, which they missed.
Now, on the topic of curfews more broadly, I agree with you. 33 years since opening is long enough for legacy residents to move if they are so annoyed by the airport noise. Everyone who arrived afterward shouldn’t complain much. And, in any event, a penalty system with proceeds put towards a community fund seems much more logical, reasonable & productive than an outright curfew.
Recently I was on a LIS LHR flight that was going to miss the LHR curfew by 3 mins. We had taxed out to the runway, held while they were trying to confirm an extension and the told the flight would be canceled.
Got compensation from TAP for this
What if a fatal incident had occurred on the aborted landing or on the extension to HHN or the bus ride, etc. over 10 seconds, quite a mess for humanity and legally.
I”d fail to see any increased liability for an incident occurring during a diversion or even on the bus. One could always start on that slippery slope of ‘what if’ ad nauseum speculating on what could have been…. Assuming all
regulations & procedures were complied with it’s just a matter of ‘fate’ or ‘roll of the dice’ in life…
“have had more than three decades to relocate”
That might be an argument in the Anglosphere, but you’re married to a German. You know how it works. They don’t exactly just sell their house, uproot their family, and move. Though I agree, this whole scenario is absurd and undermines any argument the German government can ever make about prioritizing aviation’s affect on climate change.
“The camel sticking its nose under the curfew tent ! ”
On a tangental note, I’m surprised no one mentioned the additional ‘insult’ of the diverted flight/aircraft finally arriving MUC 1:31 minutes earlier than the poor rerouted pax ? I’d like to see the explanation, understanding how situations like this have twists & turns as they develop. But I’d imagine 99.9% of the pax would have preferred to wait it out @ HHN then having to schlep bags to/from a bus not to mention enduring the ‘scenic’ night road trip. Maybe it was just a lucky break only for DE as far as positioning a new cockpit crew to ferry the aircraft back to MUC ( assuming the original cockpit timed out ) ….. I wouldn’t be amused if I was a pax and found out this tidbit. Although maybe it would have depended on how I was treated/compensated by DE.
What does one occasional plane matter?I don’t understand curfews at major airports. I lived for decades right under a final approach lined up with a runway at O’hare about 8 miles or so from the edge of the runway and there were planes constantly going over our house. It really wasn’t a big deal. You get used to it.
I could fall asleep as planes went over my head every minute or so There were 747’s landing after midnight sometimes. I assume they were most likely cargo overnight.
This defies logic on multiple levels. Also, why did Condor not diverted to Nuremberg (NUE), which has overnight operations and is reasonable distance for busing everyone.
What a terrible journey for all the passengers.
Also – why so many articles referencing OMAAT recently?
I agree. People who live near airports choose to do so. Live with your choices. No curfews.
BTW, my mother would recount a story of a couple my parents were close to in suburban Chicago. Much to my parents’ chagrin, the other couple announced they were moving near ORD, as it was the up and coming airport to replace MDW. The couple never stopped complaining about the noise and congestion at their new location. It was her story telling us kids to live with the consequences of our actions.
Western rigidity all i can say. Not to mentioned the ecological aspect as Germans trying to be so green. But Ordnung muss sein!!
German LOGIC.
with that said, you fly too much Matthew…needlessly for self-promotion / maybe frivolous reasons. Also highly biased.
Airport curfews are a good thing. Now, can we excuse 10 seconds – well, yeah…but it’s Germany.
German precision for better or worse. They should amend their contracts with the community to have a set # of mulligans like this.