It took two days and over 75 cancelled flights for the strong winds to subside on the island’s East Coast. Dozens of planes have already managed to land and take off in the early hours of this morning, in a veritable race against time given the forecast of renewed worsening conditions from Monday.
After 48 hours of utter chaos, the Madeira Airport information panel is finally painted green. The only exception is three TAP flights connecting to Lisbon, which were cancelled during the early hours of Saturday morning. All other scheduled operations were successfully completed.
However, since midnight, more than 15 planes have managed to land in the region. The air bridge has been resumed by various companies, essentially allowing the flow of passengers resulting from landings by Ryanair, TAP and easyJet from the cities of Lisbon and Porto.
International routes are also operating without constraints, with the airport receiving flights from Eurowings (Nuremberg, Hamburg, Dusseldorf and Prague), Transavia (Nantes), Luxair (Luxembourg) and Brussels Airlines (Brussels), in addition to the Binter connection (Porto Santo).
A crucial window of opportunity for airlines, which are now trying to re-accommodate the thousands of passengers who have been stranded over the past two days, both in Madeira and at other airports.
All that’s left is to enjoy the calm, especially since weather forecasts indicate a new increase in wind strength at the beginning of next week.
Now is the time for airlines to race against the clock to move the thousands of stranded passengers away before the weather worsens again.