Aegian’s airliner arrived to Larnaca airport airspace 1 hour earlier- at 4 am. Due to the fact that the airport was closed and maintenance works were conducted at the runway, the plane was left on hold above the airport.
Usually, in order to facilitate such situations or in case of an emergency, flights are redirected to the Paphos airport. However, this time, pilots decided to keep the holding pattern at 35,000 feet above Larnaca.