Here's a diversion story from October 1987. Arrived on night shift about 9pm to help out with the runway works and found an Air Malta B737-200 parked on the ramp. It had diverted in from Luton due fog. Passengers were being bussed from Luton to Stansted and they arrived in good time, were processed through the terminal quickly and were on board the aircraft about 2215hrs. The runway works were due to start at 2230 hrs with 1500m reduced runway length.
We noticed that the aircraft's baggage hold doors were still open and discovered that the bags had not been loaded. The few ground handling staff were busy in the cargo area loading other aircraft. It was estimated that by the time the ground handlers finished their cargo loading and attended the Air Malta the flight wouldn't be ready to depart until around midnight.
We informed the crew that they would have 1500m runway length at that time. This was too short for the Malta flight so they decided to offload the passengers and position the aircraft empty to Gatwick off the 1500m length. The passengers were later bussed from Stansted to Gatwick.