The next few days promise hours of chaos at Madeira airport, and today it started very early, with the ATR 72 of the Canarian airline Binter failing to land this morning in Porto Santo.
This happened because the extremely adverse weather conditions, with rain, wind and poor visibility, prevented a safe approach to the airport runway on the ‘golden island’.
The aircraft returned to Madeira Island, where it will likely wait for better weather conditions, or cancel the flight. In fact, ANA-Aeroportos de Portugal has already cancelled this return flight from Porto Santo Island, even though it departed at 8:33 am, as we saw it turned back.
Now, all that remains is to wait for the second scheduled trip, departing from Madeira at 7:00 PM for Porto Santo, although the weather conditions do not bode well.
The first few flights from mainland did manage to land this morning, Then trouble started, already with some flights diverted.
BA Gatwick , didnt even get close to thevisland before ducerting to Faro.
Moreover, several flights to and from Madeira have already been cancelled. In addition to the aforementioned Binter flight that was due to arrive at 8:45 am, flights have already been cancelled from Amsterdam (Transavia), Bristol (easyJet), London-Gatwick (easyJet), London-Luton (Jet2), Belfast (Jet2), Manchester (TUI Airways), Liverpool (Jet2), Birmingham (TUI Airways), London-Stansted (Jet2), Lisbon (TAP), Bournemouth (Jet2), Edinburgh (Jet2), Manchester (Jet2), Newcastle (Jet2), Birmingham (Jet2), Bristol (Jet2), East Midlands (Jet2), Lisbon (easyJet), Berlin-Brandenburg (easyJet), Glasgow (Jet2), Lisbon (TAP), London-Gatwick (easyJet), Lisbon (TAP), Porto (TAP) and Lisbon (TAP), the latter being the 10:55 pm flight.
These 26 already cancelled arrival flights must be added to several others still scheduled or with an undefined operational status, for now, at Madeira Airport. Departures, in turn, currently number 24 flights.
In practice, at least 50 arriving and departing flights have already been cancelled at this time, shortly after 9:00 am this Monday. In the last few minutes, a LuxAir flight from Luxembourg diverted to Porto Santo, where it has just landed.
