Upon a determination that a relay backhaul link of a relay node is using excessive resources of a donor access node, wireless devices attached to the relay node are offloaded to other access nodes such as neighbor access nodes or to a different frequency band deployed by the donor access node or its neighbors. A donor access node transmits a congestion indicator to the relay node. The relay node transmits updated measurement parameters to end-user wireless devices connected thereto. An end-user wireless device reports back to the relay node in the event it measures a signal strength that is stronger than the current signal strength. This measurement event triggers a handoff of the end-user wireless device, thereby helping to alleviate the resource utilization of the air-interface of the donor access node.