Hey all,I wondered if airports are operational 24 hours a day, or do aircraft have to takeoff and land before a particular time due to regulations on night flights and noise?

Pretty sure the biggies are open 24 hours, I know for a fact mine is, KLAS. And remember if it's an emergency you can land anywhere you'd like. For military bases, "quiet hours" can be anytime, here at Tinker, they are during the day, and it has something to do with schools.Jeff

Although most major airports are officially open 24 hrs, many impose restrictions on night flying mainly because of noise.The major London airports operate a complex system based on a numerical movement limit and a noise quota for night flights. This also includes a ban on scheduling the noisiest (QC/4) aircraft at night.

Noise is frequently the major factor.http://www.smgov.net/airport/n_listedbanned.aspxI guess there are too many B-17's flying around Santa Monica. :-(

Quite a lot in places like Africa do shut down. In fact, (apparently) aircraff flying over Africa at night must do so under a modified version of ETOPS. Don't know whether that's correct or not...I think a lot of smaller airports do shut down at night - for example, I believe my local one, Plymouth, does . Then again, it gets so little traffic it's difficult to tell whether it's open or closed during the day :-), let alone the night!

In Australia at Sydney YSSY we have nightime curfews. I think it's 10 pm - 6 am. There are exceptions to this rule (isn't there always) but all international RPT operations observe this curfew. This may be an Airport dependent rule though as only last March I personally was returning from Manilla to Sydney via Brisbane and we transitted through Brisbane at about 3.30 AM. Apart from the transit lounge we were in the rest of the airport was in total shut-down mode.

Hi,I know that some airports are closed after say-9 or 10 at night because of noise...KSNA comes to mind...anyways, most of the large airports are open 24/7, or at least mine is (KPHX).:)