Why aircraft get diverted
Diversions are almost always about safety or logistics rather than anything dramatic. Fog or crosswinds below the limits for the runway. A runway closed by an incident or a disabled aircraft. A medical emergency on board requiring the nearest suitable airport. Crew running out of legal duty hours while holding. Airport closures caused by drone sightings, security alerts or severe weather. Occasionally a technical issue that makes a longer flight inadvisable.
London flights typically divert between the London airports first, so a Heathrow arrival may end up at Gatwick, Stansted, Luton or Southend. Beyond that the usual alternates are Birmingham and Manchester, and for transatlantic arrivals sometimes Shannon, Dublin, Paris or Amsterdam. Where you land determines almost everything that follows.
The first thing to establish is whether the aircraft is continuing to your original destination after refuelling, or whether the flight has been terminated at the diversion airport. These are completely different situations and staff will not always volunteer which one you are in. Ask.
If the flight continues
Often the aircraft sits on the ground, takes on fuel, waits for weather or a slot, and flies the last twenty minutes to the original airport. In this case you usually stay on board or in a holding area. It is frustrating and it can take hours, but your arrangements survive intact and the only thing you need to do is tell whoever is meeting you.
If the flight is terminated at the diversion airport
This is where your rights matter. Under the UK's retained air passenger rights rules, if you are landed at a different airport from the one you were ticketed to, the airline must bear the cost of getting you to your original destination airport or an agreed nearby point. That is not a goodwill gesture, it is an obligation, and it applies regardless of the reason for the diversion, including weather.
Separately, the airline owes you a duty of care while you wait: reasonable food and refreshment, communication, and accommodation with transport to it if you are delayed overnight. This also applies even when the cause was outside the airline's control. What is not owed in weather cases is fixed compensation, because extraordinary circumstances remove that. People often conflate the two and give up on both.
What to do in practice
Get to the airline desk or the app queue immediately, because the first fifty passengers are handled properly and the last two hundred are handled badly. If the airline arranges coaches, take one, since it is free and it discharges the obligation cleanly. If the airline says nothing and offers nothing, make your own reasonable arrangements and keep every receipt, then claim afterwards. Reasonable is the operative word: a coach fare or a train ticket will be reimbursed, a chauffeur-driven car for one person probably will not.
Photograph the departure board showing the diversion, keep your boarding pass, and note the times of every announcement. Airlines settle documented claims far more readily than remembered ones.
Your luggage after a diversion
Bags do not always follow the same path as passengers. If the flight is terminated, your hold luggage will normally be offloaded at the diversion airport and returned to you there, but if the aircraft continues empty the bags may end up at the original destination. Establish which before you leave the terminal. If your bag is not with you, file a property irregularity report before leaving the airport, because doing it later is dramatically harder.
Sorting out your ground transport
This is the part that catches people. You booked a car to meet you at Heathrow at 07:00 and you are now at Stansted at 09:40 with no idea what happens to the booking. What you do next depends entirely on who you booked with.
An app with no phone number will simply have cancelled and charged you. A licensed operator with a staffed phone line can reassign the job. Call them as soon as you have signal and know where you actually are. Most operators will move the pickup to the new airport and adjust the fare to reflect the different journey, and a good one will already have seen the diversion on the flight tracker before you call.
Do not accept a ride from anyone approaching you in a diversion-day arrivals hall. Diversions produce a large group of stranded, tired passengers in an airport with limited licensed supply, which is precisely the situation touts exist for.
Rushxo tracks every booked flight, so a diversion shows up on our side automatically. Call +44 20 8888 9988 or message +44 20 8888 9988 on WhatsApp and we will rework the pickup for the airport you are actually standing in.