Disclosed are methods and systems to facilitate handover of a UE away from a primary carrier of a base station, despite a primary carrier having a channel quality that is at or above a channel quality threshold of the primary carrier. In particular, a wireless communication system may serve the UE with carrier aggregation service using (i) a first carrier as a primary carrier for the UE and (ii) a second carrier as a secondary carrier for the UE. During the serving, while a channel quality of the primary carrier is at or above a first threshold quality, the system may make a determination that a channel quality of the secondary carrier is below a second threshold quality. In response to at least making the determination, the system may carry out a handover of the UE from the primary carrier of the first base station to another carrier.