Rough: Japan Airlines A350 Diverts Twice Due To Missed Curfew

By: Ben Schlappig

Updated: January 8, 2025
Published: February 20, 2023

30 comments

Last night’s Japan Airlines flight from Tokyo to Fukuoka didn’t exactly go as planned.

In this post:

Japan Airlines A350 misses Fukuoka curfew, diverts to Osaka

This incident happened on Sunday, February 19, 2023, and involves Japan Airlines flight JL331, scheduled to operate from Tokyo (HND) to Fukuoka (FUK). The flight was operated by a two year old Airbus A350-900 with the registration code JA07XJ.

The 549-mile flight was scheduled to depart at 6:30PM and arrive at 8:30PM, and was blocked at two hours. Unfortunately that’s not how the flight ended up playing out, though.

Fukuoka Airport has a 10PM curfew. This is Japan, so you know that 10PM means 10PM. This curfew can only be broken with prior written approval, so that can’t be done last minute if you happen to approach just a few minutes late. Due to weather in the Tokyo area, the flight only ended up taking off a bit under two hours behind schedule, at 8:18PM.

The plane started its journey to Fukuoka, climbing up to 26,000 feet. Well, I guess the plane wasn’t going quite fast enough, because it missed the airport’s curfew by a matter of minutes. For example, below is the flight tracking for where the aircraft was at 9:58PM, just miles from Fukuoka Airport.

A Japan Airlines A350 barely missed the Fukuoka curfew

At that point the pilots were informed that they wouldn’t be allowed to land in Fukuoka, so plans were made to divert to another airport not subjected to a curfew. The decision was then made to fly to Kansai Osaka Airport (KIX), which is one of the carrier’s largest airports outside of the Tokyo area. The plane ended up landing there around 2hr40min after departing Tokyo, at 10:56PM local time.

The Japan Airlines A350 diverted to Osaka

Below is a Japanese news story about the incident.

Japan Airlines A350 returns to Tokyo in middle of night

At this point Japan Airlines had a plane load of passengers in Osaka, a city in which passengers neither originated in or intended to travel to. Furthermore, the crew was allegedly timing out, so couldn’t fly the passengers any further. Somehow Japan Airlines found a replacement crew at this hour of the night. The decision was made to return to Tokyo, where the passengers had originated, since that airport wouldn’t be subject to a curfew.

The flight ended up taking off at 1:55AM, and landing in Tokyo at 2:44AM. So over eight hours after their scheduled departure, passengers found themselves exactly where they started.

The Japan Airlines A350 then flew from Osaka to Tokyo

Passengers were then reportedly given hotel vouchers, compensation of 20,000 JPY (~$150), and were rebooked on other flights on Monday.

The wildest part of this story

Here’s what makes this even more interesting. Japan Airlines had two other flights scheduled to operate from Tokyo to Fukuoka after the above flight. While JL331 was scheduled to depart at 6:30PM, JL333 was scheduled to depart at 7:15PM and JL335 was scheduled to depart at 7:30PM.

Interestingly both of those flights managed to land in Fukuoka that night after the curfew. JL333 landed at 10:13PM, while JL335 landed at 10:16PM. Clearly Japan Airlines requested written permission in advance for those flights, realizing that they’d arrive after the curfew.

It would appear that for whatever reason, Japan Airlines’ operations department thought that JL331 could land in Fukuoka before the curfew, or else written permission would have been requested as well. The passengers on JL331 sure were unlucky…

Bottom line

A Japan Airlines Airbus A350 flying from Tokyo to Fukuoka had a departure delay due to bad weather, and ended up approaching Fukuoka just a few minutes after the curfew kicked in. The plane then diverted to Osaka, where the crew was changed, and then the flight flew back to Tokyo in the middle of the night.

While I can appreciate the logic of airports having curfews, surely there should be some leeway when it comes to situations like this, which are in no one’s best interest. Think of the amount of time and resources (including fuel!) that were wasted.

What do you make of this Japan Airlines diversion?

PS: Do I get any bonus points for my maturity, and not making a single pun about the airport code? 😉

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Sandy Guest

February 23, 2023, 2:09 pm

Let’s weigh the situation—earplugs or major disaster? Hummm, I’m dumbfounded. Furthermore, if they’re late, in the name of God, they still have to land. Airlines gets charged a fee. This is so ludicrous, I don’t even believe this article is real. Who’s the guy that said “No”? Step down before lives are lost!

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Nikojas Guest

February 21, 2023, 7:55 am

Well done on avoiding the airline code pun. When i flew Fukuoka to Miyazaki I couldn’t help sharing my booking confirmation with the email header : FUKKMI

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Spence Guest

February 20, 2023, 9:50 pm

What is fine if "declared an emergency" and landed anyway vs. fuel, time, 20,000 Yen per passenger, Hotel vouchers, last minute staff called in, etc. I am sure there are more and I know the Japanese hold themselves to a high degree in ethics, precision and honesty. That being said, you are flying an aircraft with however many souls on board (which is kind of irrelevant I suppose) and then...what? Does the airport just turns the lights off and ATC just stops communication after 10 pm? There is a plethora of excuses I am sure they could have used to land. We don't have enough fuel, we think a passenger is having a stroke or a heart attack, we have a master caution alert and we don't know why so we are just going to land. That's what I would do anyway. I can't imagine the fury of some of those passengers... So 2 questions: 1 - what is the financial impact if the crew says we are landing anyway vs. all the nonsense that happened afterwards? 2 - Why is there a curfew in the first place? Noise? Union rules? I don't get it. It is an aircraft filled with people and you (the airport and some DB at ATC says "Nope, turn around") have a few landing strips that clearly aren't being used...so piss off. We are landing, deal with it. Imagine if that was a USA charter. They would probably start a war over that.

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Super VC10 Guest

February 20, 2023, 9:43 pm

Japan is very strict about this kind of thing. When I was a flight attendant with Northwest Airlines I worked an A330 flight from Seoul to Narita that was delayed leaving Seoul. A typhoon was approaching Japan and by the time our flight was approaching the Japanese coast our captain was informed that all the airports within our fuel range were closed. We did not have sufficient fuel to return to Korea. To make what was a very long, involved and ultimately frightening story short(er), our captain had to declare an emergency, report the total number of souls onboard, and attempt to land at the closed Sendai Airport. The approach through the raging typhoon was terrifying. Passengers were screaming and it was so turbulent the Japanese flight attendant in the jumpseat opposite me was projectile vomiting. She could not hold a bag to her face because of the plane's violent pitching and rolling. When we hit the ground I wasn't sure if we'd landed or crashed; the impact was that shocking. As Sendai was not an international airport there were no immigration authorities and the crew and passengers were forced to remain on the aircraft. The only meal onboard had been a snack that had been served on the ground in Seoul due to the delayed departure. There was no food on the plane for the next 16 or so hours that we remained onboard. Eventually the passengers were deplaned and sent by train to Tokyo. Our crew had to remain at Sendai until mechanics arrived by road from Narita, to check the plane for damage caused by our hard landing. It was one of the most serious incidents in my 30 years as a flight attendant, and didn't need to be so dangerous, but the Japanese authorities would not budge on their rules.

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Pete Guest

February 20, 2023, 6:07 pm

Ugh... Curfews A few years ago a Qantas 737 departed Auckland bound for Sydney. The flight was already an hour late, and ended-up diverting to Melbourne because of thunderstorms at Sydney and Canberra (the closest divert to SYD). They sat on the ground at MEL for close to two hours, departed for SYD, missed the 2300 curfew by a couple of minutes, were denied permission to land, and returned to Melbourne.

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