The average annual number of passengers affected by wind has increased by 568% in the last decade, since the installation of new anemometers at Madeira International Airport in 2014, revealed the Regional Secretary for Tourism, Environment and Culture, Eduardo Jesus, this Wednesday, speaking at the second session of the 50th anniversary of the Conference of the Portuguese Association of Travel and Tourism Agencies (APAVT), which is taking place in Macau.
Between 2005 and 2014, when conventional anemometers were in use, the average number of passengers affected by winds at Madeira Airport was 12,630 per year. In 2015, after the replacement of the measuring devices with conventional ones, and up to the present day, that number has skyrocketed to 84,430, according to the presentation by the Secretary responsible for Tourism.
All things considered, that’s an additional 71,903 passengers affected per year. “I’m almost ready to catch my flight to Lisbon airport,” the Madeiran official quipped ironically.
Speaker at the panel of ‘session 2: Infrastructure… Or the lack thereof…’ of the Conference of the Portuguese Association of Travel and Tourism Agencies (APAVT), Eduardo Jesus took to the stage ‘a story of storms… or maybe not!’, an opportunity to, with some humor mixed in, disguise the impatience regarding the revision of the operational limits with wind, long demanded by the Regional Government.
Eduardo Jesus gave a historical overview of the development and progress achieved in structural, scientific, and technical terms in civil aviation and aeronautics. This was all to explain to the congress attendees that the people of Madeira cannot accept the operational limitations imposed by means such as the Dakota DC-3, which served in World War II and was already considered obsolete at the time of the inauguration of Madeira Airport in 1964.
The expansion of the runway by 73.6% (currently at 2,781 meters); the introduction of new generation equipment with greater precision and reliability; the most modern aircraft, with monitoring capabilities, technologically more advanced and prepared to identify windshear; pilots supported by advanced simulators and with reinforced training that is periodically evaluated. These are factors that should be included in the equation for calculating the new limits for aircraft operation in wind conditions in Madeira, argued the Madeiran government official.
Eduardo Jesus said that he does not defend any “kamikaze” approach, as he himself is a frequent traveler. “No one is irresponsible enough to defend solutions that do not guarantee passenger safety. However, safety has been the easiest, most convenient, and most useless excuse that has protected those who have become entrenched in time,” pointed out the Madeiran official, who recalls that the only accident caused by windshear in Portugal did not occur in Madeira and did not impose any wind limits on the operation of that airport.
In Macau, he revealed to tour operators attending the congress that 80% of diverted flights registered winds up to 3 knots above the established limits, when the aircraft currently operating are certified to withstand up to 38 knots of crosswind (the current limit is 15 knots).
Eduardo Jesus also pointed out that in the last two decades, 70.81% of the downtime occurred in the last 10 years, precisely after the anemometers were changed, and that the impact increased from an average of 2 to 6 days.
“These are inconceivable facts in a region where tourism represents 30% of the GDP,” concluded Eduardo Jesus, drawing applause from the audience of congress attendees, mostly composed of representatives from the sector.
“Either climate change set a date and time to arrive in Madeira and knocked on our door, or something was left uncorrected back then,” the regional secretary for Tourism quipped, drawing laughter from the audience. “The simple change in anemometers has doubled this reality,” the regional secretary for Tourism concluded.