The strong winds felt this Tuesday, the 3rd, have severely hampered operations at Madeira International Airport – Cristiano Ronaldo.
By midday, 60 flights had been cancelled — 30 arrivals and 30 departures — plus three aircraft that had to divert. By late morning, there were five planes en route to Madeira, one of them holding off the coast of the archipelago.
Before 10:00 AM, six aircraft managed to land in Santa Cruz, all of which had attempted the trip this morning, having departed before 11:00 AM.
The first flight to encounter difficulties was a Ryanair plane from Porto, which, after circling off the north coast, ended up diverting after 11:30 am. Around midday, a SATA flight returned to Ponta Delgada, in the Azores, after several more circling events. The Binter ATR that had gone to Porto Santo also ended up landing back in Madeira, bringing the number of diverted flights this morning to three.
An easyJet Europe aircraft, flying from Berlin, returned to Germany after passing through French territory, and its arrival and departure flights were subsequently cancelled.
The number of cancelled flights is expected to increase throughout the day. This morning, a wind gust of 102 km/h was also recorded in Caniçal/Ponta de São Lourenço.