A man has been charged with flying a drone near Heathrow Airport days after a scare at Gatwick grounded more than 1,000 flights.

George Rusu, 38, allegedly used a drone on a field near the runway at Britain's busiest airport on Christmas Eve.

Heathrow Airport is a major international airport near London, United Kingdom.

Heathrow is the second busiest airport in the world by international passenger traffic, as well as the busiest airport in Europe by passenger traffic, and the seventh busiest airport in the world by total passenger traffic.

 It is one of six international airports serving Greater London. In 2018, it handled a record 80.1 million passengers, a 2.7% increase from 2017

The alleged incident happened just three days after Gatwick fully reopened on December 21 following three days of chaos affecting some 140,000 passengers.

Rusu, of Blunts Avenue, Hillingdon, will appear at Uxbridge Magistrates' Court on Tuesday.

He is charged with flying a "small unmanned aircraft without permission of air traffic control", according to court documents.

The drone did not cause disruption at the airport, unlike a sighting which caused flights to be grounded for over an hour.