After two days marked by significant disruptions due to Storm Emilia, air operations to and from Madeira returned to normal this Sunday, as the wind lost intensity near Madeira International Airport – Cristiano Ronaldo.
The first sign of recovery occurred in the early hours of the morning, with the arrival, shortly before 3 am, of the Ryanair plane from Dublin, Ireland. The aircraft had taken off from Funchal in the early evening on Saturday, the only movement recorded that day, the second consecutive day with practically no air operations due to gusts exceeding 100 km/h in the runway area.
Despite the wind still blowing strongly in the airport’s area of influence — with a maximum gust of 68 km/h recorded at 3:20 am and values around 60 km/h (average wind speed of 36.7 km/h) in the last hour — air activity was significant during the morning. By 9:30 am, 13 planes had landed in Santa Cruz, six of which had already departed. There were still 18 aircraft in the air, en route to Madeira, on domestic and international flights from various European airports.
However, nine flights were cancelled, all in advance: four arrivals and five departures.
It should be recalled that, on the two most critical days, Friday and Saturday, 204 of the 210 scheduled flights to and from Madeira were cancelled, a situation that affected around 40,000 passengers, including those who were unable to reach the region and those who were stranded on the island.
High air and passenger traffic volumes are expected today and in the coming days, as part of a recovery operation aimed at gradually normalizing all the constraints caused by the bad weather.