At least one of the international planes that today landed at Madeira Airport, arrived in the Region empty. It didn’t bring any passengers on board. Only with crew. It was an operation that aimed only at ‘repatriating’ tourists from Germany.
The movement in question involved an Airbus A321 by Lufthansa. This flight to Madeira is part of the regular schedule that the German company runs on Sunday between Munich and Funchal. However, in view of yesterday’s constraints that require isolation in a quarantine regime, all passengers arriving from abroad who disembark at the airports in the Region, Lufthansa opted to officially cancel only the Munich Funchal connection, thus blocking the entry of passengers and avoiding the strong constraints to which they would be obliged on arrival.
The flight which arrived around noon in Madeira, an hour later the aircraft with many passengers on board, was returning to Germany.
Of the flights scheduled for today, TAP canceled the two flights from Lisbon and Porto just after midnight to protect the respective crews, preventing them from being covered by the quarantine. As a result, they were forced to cancel the first two flights in the morning. This situation should be repeated every day over the next few weeks, at least until the end of this month. Also cancelled were the two Binter flights with the Canary Islands (departure and arrival), apparently, also to protect the crew. having to be held for 14 days in quarantine.