A light-hearted well written post doing the rounds on social media. We all know it so well.
There are airports, and then there is Cristiano Ronaldo International Airport. Yes, they named it after a footballer. No, that is not the most terrifying thing about it.
The most terrifying thing about it is that the runway was built on the side of a volcanic island in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, extended over the sea on 180 concrete pillars, and regularly visited by crosswinds that would make a seagull reconsider its life choices.They call it the “white knuckle airport.” They are not being dramatic.
Lisbon: The Calm Before the Storm. It starts innocently enough. Humberto Delgado Airport in Lisbon. Gate 47. A TAP Air Portugal Airbus doing its best impression of a trustworthy aircraft. The flight time reads 1 hour 35 minutes, which seems perfectly civilised.You board. You sit down.
The couple next to you are British tourists wearing matching sun hats and radiating the sort of holiday optimism that only people who’ve never landed in Funchal can possess.”Madeira!” she says to him, clutching a guidebook. “The flower island! So romantic!”
I smile. I say nothing. I’ve done this flight more times than I can count. I know what’s coming.The First Hour: A Masterclass in False Security. For roughly 80 minutes, everything is delightful. The Airbus purrs along at 37,000 feet. The cabin crew distribute tiny sandwiches and those miniature bottles of wine that make you feel like a giant. The sky is blue. The Atlantic glitters below like someone spilled a continent’s worth of sequins.You could be forgiven for thinking this is just a pleasant little hop from the mainland to a subtropical paradise. The in-flight magazine shows photos of levada walks, botanical gardens, and poncha cocktails. Everything is serene. Everything is fine.
And then the captain makes an announcement.”Ladies and gentlemen, we are beginning our descent into Funchal. Please return to your seats and ensure your seatbelts are fastened.”A pause.”Conditions at the airport are… within normal parameters.”That pause told you everything you needed to know.
“Within normal parameters” at Funchal means winds that would constitute a weather warning anywhere else. It means the runway is 2,781 metres of concrete perched between mountains and ocean, with a lovely sheer drop at the end should anything go slightly wrong.The British couple are still smiling. Bless them.The Descent: Where Religion Gets Popular Very Quickly.
The plane banks left and suddenly Madeira appears through the window — a great volcanic fortress rising from the ocean, its peaks shrouded in cloud, its cliffs dropping vertically into frothing Atlantic surf. It looks like something from a fantasy film. It also looks like absolutely nowhere sensible to land an aircraft.The approach into Funchal is not like other approaches. In most airports, you descend gradually, the runway appearing in the distance, growing larger and more reassuring with each passing second. In Funchal, the runway doesn’t appear until you’re essentially already on it.First, you fly along the coastline, admiring the terraced hillsides and red-roofed villages from a height that feels increasingly inappropriate. Then the plane turns sharply — and I mean SHARPLY — towards the runway, which materialises between a mountain on one side and the Atlantic Ocean on the other.
The wind hits.I don’t mean a gentle breeze. I mean the kind of sideways gust that makes the aircraft do things aircraft should not do. The wings dip. The fuselage shudders. The overhead bins rattle with the enthusiasm of a percussion section.The British woman grabs her husband’s arm. “Derek,” she says, her voice two octaves higher than before. “Derek, the wing is wobbling.”Derek says nothing. Derek is gripping the armrest with a force that could crush coal into diamonds.The Final Approach: A Religious Experience.
Here’s what nobody tells you about Funchal airport: the pilots who fly this route are absolute legends. They have to undergo special training just to be certified for this approach. They’re essentially the Formula 1 drivers of commercial aviation, threading a 70-tonne aircraft through crosswinds and mountain turbulence with the casual precision of someone parallel parking.The plane drops. Your stomach stays at the altitude you just left. The runway rushes up — that famous extended platform on its forest of concrete pillars over the ocean. For one magnificent, bowel-loosening moment, you are convinced you are landing in the sea.And then — THUMP.Rubber meets concrete. The reverse thrusters roar. The plane decelerates with the urgency of someone who’s just remembered the runway has an end.Applause erupts throughout the cabin.This is not an exaggeration. People genuinely clap when you land in Funchal. Not polite golf claps, either. Full, enthusiastic, we-just-survived-something applause. The kind of applause usually reserved for encores and rescue helicopters.
The British woman is crying. Derek is staring straight ahead with the expression of a man who has seen God and God was a Portuguese pilot.I applaud too. Every single time. Because no matter how many times you do it, landing in Funchal never becomes routine.
The Airport Formerly Known As Santa Catarina. Once your legs remember how to function, you step off the plane and into Cristiano Ronaldo International Airport — renamed in 2017 after Madeira’s most famous son. There’s a bust of him inside that’s become almost as famous as the airport itself, though for entirely different reasons. The original bronze bust made him look like he’d been stung by a swarm of bees whilst having an allergic reaction. They’ve since replaced it with a more flattering version, which is either an improvement or a loss for comedy, depending on your perspective.
The airport itself is actually quite modern and efficient, which feels wrong after what you’ve just experienced. You want drama. You want a medal. You want someone to hand you a brandy and say “well done.” Instead, you get a luggage carousel and a Europcar desk. A Brief History of Near-Misses. The original runway, built in 1964, was only 1,600 metres long. Let me put that in perspective: a modern commercial aircraft ideally wants about 2,500 metres. So they were landing jets on a runway roughly the length of a vigorous jog.In 2000, they extended it — over the ocean, on those now-iconic concrete pillars — to its current 2,781 metres.
This was considered a vast improvement, which tells you everything about how terrifying the original was. Before the extension, only specially trained pilots could attempt the landing, and flights were frequently diverted to Porto Santo (Madeira’s smaller, flatter, significantly less dramatic sister island) when conditions were deemed too challenging. “Too challenging for Funchal” is a bar so high that most airports couldn’t see it with binoculars.Even now, with the extended runway and modern aircraft, go-arounds are not uncommon. A go-around is aviation terminology for “we tried to land, the wind said no, and we’re going to fly around and try again.”
I’ve personally experienced three go-arounds in Funchal. Each one added a new grey hair. I’m running out of space for grey hairs.Why We Keep Coming Back. Here’s the thing, though. As the adrenaline fades and you collect your rental car and drive along the VR1 towards Funchal (or west, towards Calheta, if you’re heading to family like I do), Madeira begins to work its magic.
The air hits you first. Warm, humid, tinged with eucalyptus and ocean salt. Then the views — those impossible, vertiginous views of terraced hillsides tumbling into the sea. The banana plantations. The bougainvillea cascading over stone walls. The old men sitting outside cafés drinking poncha and discussing football with the intensity of UN diplomats.And you think: yes. That landing was worth it. That landing is ALWAYS worth it, because Madeira isn’t just an island. It’s a place that demands a dramatic entrance. And Cristiano Ronaldo International Airport — with its crosswinds, its ocean-spanning runway, and its ability to turn atheists into believers in approximately 90 seconds — delivers exactly that.
Practical Tips for the White Knuckle Experience- Sit on the left side of the aircraft for the best views of the coastline approach. Sit on the right if you prefer not to see what’s happening.- Window seat vs aisle: Window if you want the full experience. Aisle if you value plausible deniability about what’s happening outside.- Don’t fly on an empty stomach, but also don’t eat anything you’d rather not see again.- The applause is mandatory. Even if you’re too shaken to move your hands, at least nod appreciatively at the pilot.- If the flight gets diverted to Porto Santo, consider it a bonus. Porto Santo has a beautiful 9km beach and significantly fewer near-death experiences.Coming Up in Part 2…Now that we’ve survived the landing, it’s time to leave the airport and head west along the coast. In Part 2 of The Madeira Diaries, we’ll explore why Calheta, Estreito da Calheta, and Ribeira Funda are Madeira’s best-kept secrets — and why having family on the island means you see a very different Madeira from the one in the guidebooks.
*Bem-vindos à Madeira. You’ve earned it.*
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