This flight tonight

Bristol Airport is allowed nearly as many nighttime flights as Heathrow, yet issues more dispensations for late arriving flights the world's second busiest airport. James Garrett investigates.

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Figures recently published by Bristol Airport Ltd (BAL) for 2025 reveal that aircraft landed at night - during hours when it is supposedly closed to air traffic - a total of 4,666 times.

On average, almost 13 flights landed at the airport between 2330 and 0600 each night from New Year’s Day to the following New Year’s Eve.

Of course, late-arriving flights were not distributed uniformly across the year. During the busiest months, June to September, more than 500 flights arrived after hours each month, an average of almost 18 every night.

Every one of those flights might have disrupted the sleep of thousands of people as it approached BRS, the International Air Transport Association code allocated to Bristol Airport.