Mats and snacks provided to passengers affected by inconvenience at Madeira Airport

Tobi Hughes·
Madeira News

The inconveniences at Madeira Airport are already more than many, as can be seen from the thousands of passengers who are being affected by the countless canceled, diverted and delayed flights.

Throughout today, many people traveled to the Departures and Arrivals areas at the airport, which caused real chaos.

In this sense, as a measure to mitigate these constraints and the discomfort of travelers, ANA Aeroportos set up a support plan, in which mats and chairs were made available for some passengers to spend the night and also distributed, free of charge, some snacks and bottles of water.

Meanwhile, the Captaincy of Funchal warns that the strong wind will continue “sometimes strong” until late Wednesday morning.

From Diário Notícias

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Tobi Hughes

26 Responses

  1. When we were delayed a few years ago due to the strong winds Easyjet arranged transport to a hotel, provided a meal, breakfast in the morning and then transportation back to the airport the next day. Doesn’t this happen any more and you have to spend the night in the airport?

    1. Helga, no chance a few years ago Madeira was a different island safe, cheap and cheerful have you seen the hotel prices they are charging today?

      1. Madeira has never been “cheap and cheerful” in the Costa’s sense, it’s always been and still is cheap if you throw in the value added items, like good table ware, linen napkins, and general cleanliness. Think of your usual restaurant at home and the cost of say, two main courses, two sweets and a bottle of house red. In Madeira I would cost that about 50 Euros. Now think, back home, does anyone pull your chair back when you sit down, actually looked you in the eye and smiled when they took your order, when did you last have freshly cooked veg, how often do you have to pour your own wine? I will agree Madeiras not cheap, but extremely good value. As to cheerful, the British hospitality industry doesn’t know the meaning of the word, the typical British staff are there to serve drinks and pick up their wages, they have no interest in you what ever. I shall be back again, second time this year, shortly, staying at a four star hotel for 78 Euros per night including breakfast. That’s my wife and myself, please tell us what you call a reasonable room rate.

          1. Margaret, ask Toby for my email address. I will be more than pleased to answer you. It will be some repayment for the wonderful service I have experienced over the last eight years.

              1. Another Madeira knocker with a pen name who won’t answer a question. What do you consider a reasonable room rate? Second time of asking.

  2. A few years ago there was a design plan for a new airport offshore with transport link to the shore. Has the Regional Government scotched this? For the amount of trouble to passengers and flight crews this would be an excellent development for everybody. We have personally experienced the utter chaos like this ourselves at this airport both flying in and flying out.

  3. Our EasyJet flight has been canceled triste afternoon. We are going to spend the night at the airport because the hotels are full on the whole island (and doubled or tripled their prices..).
    The airport staff distributed a few dozens of mats for a few hundreds of people…. unsufficient….

    1. In an attempt to be fair to Easyjet, can I ask what did EasyJet actually say, bearing in mind airlines have a duty to find accomodation for passengers when a flight is cancelled, did they offer any accomodation, did they say because the hotels were full they would reimburse accomodation costs if you found your own, or was it your choice to spend the night at the airport.? I ask because on both occasions when my flight has been cancelled because of airport conditions EasyJet found us acceptable hotels.

  4. Tourists should not expect comfortable and safe travel when they go for cheap transport first.

    1. Did you think before you made that comment. You think public safety should depend on how much you pay? You think British Airways should be safer than Ryanair? It’s up to me to pay for a reclining seat and I don’t know where you’re going to find the staff to fly the cheaper, less safe, aircraft.

  5. Instead of building tunnels, cable cars or spending money on sea front areas that are perfectly okay as they are why oh why doesn’t the government invest in a large property next to the airport that can accommodate the needs of the tourists when this situation occurs??, surely mrA should understand that these are the memories that tourists are going to take home with them.

    1. But you can’t have a place fully staffed if its only going to be used on and off every now and then, so there is another problem..

  6. For many of us there is only one airline option for travel, in our case Jet2 who have been pretty good in terms of service. And thank God they don’t have reclining seats, the preserve of those arrogant souls who think their own comfort supersedes that of the poor souls sitting behind them. (I really don’t want a four-hour close-up view of George’s toupee….)
    Amongst our plane-load who did the old airport-hotel shuffle routine twice this week, there was much talk of this being ‘our last time’ – it had ruined too many holidays for many – we had some sympathy for that view, and it will be music to the ears of many of your contributors whose loathing of the tourist is ill-concealed.
    But it will inevitably mean reduced services and much higher costs all round – those airlines are not charitable institutions.

    1. I too have suffered with my fellow passengers reclining seat but appreciate a gentle rake, try 13 hours long haul, bolt upright. Should you ever have the misfortune to sit behind me then forget the toupee, sunglasses to kill the glare would be more in order. My problem has always been the aborted landing and spending the night in Lisbon, Porto, Tenerife, twice, at the air lines expense. Fingers crossed it will be a calm day on the 29th. I think the airlines do a great job

  7. I’m, hopefully, fingers crossed, flying to Gatwick tomorrow evening. If the flight is delayed.. tough. I’ll just grin and bear it. High winds? What else? Madeira is an island in the Atlantic Ocean. Mother Nature has her own views on humans travelling the world.

  8. Tobi, I am not suggesting that the government builds a hotel by the airport, and fully understand that it would be totally unviable, but let’s face facts, tourists sleeping on the floor at the airport is totally unacceptable, there needs to be a backup plan when this kind of weather happens, which has been frequent lately, maybe if hotels were limited to let’s say 80% occupancy rate it would leave room for this kind of situation, but I am sure that this would cause an outrage, because all that MrA and the hotel groups care about is filling the hotels to the brim, had better be careful as some tourists may not want to return having been treated in this manner, totally and utterly unacceptable.

    1. It’s Mr.A’s and the hotel groups job to fill the hotels, but it’s not a bad idea to restrict them to 80% occupancy, then perhaps we could have a 20% tourist tax to make up for the hotel group’s loss of revenue. Nearly as good an idea as your idea for the “emergency hotel”

  9. What ever the answer is, there must be one found, it is totally in this day and age unacceptable for people, in some cases elderly and some others with children to spend the night on the airport floor, Madeira is not the only place with airport problems, I personally have had some in the past, including the UK, but thankfully I was never subjected to having to sleep on the airport floor, it’s a total outrage, somebody needs to wake up and take care of the situation, before tourists decide not to come back, then it’ll be too late!!!

  10. Looking at the original photographs there’s not much different to a usual day at the airport. Where a photograph shows chairs, there are empty ones. I’ve certainly been crushed together with other passengers more when dropping luggage, at passport control and at the boarding gates far more than any of the photographs. People sitting on the floor, people are always sitting on the floor at airports. You are right people should not be sleeping on airport floors but I can’t believe there are no empty hotel beds in Madeira. One correspondent has written they are staying at the airport over night but when I ask were they offered accomodation, no reply. There’s too many unasked and unanswered questions to get any true picture.

  11. How often does this happen? Where do you go if they can’t land and how long is the usual wait before you can take off? This will be our first time flying to Madeira

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