Until 3:00 PM on this first day of 2026, unstable weather forced several aircraft to abort landings in Santa Cruz. Seven flights have already been canceled and nine diverted. Porto Santo, the Canary Islands, or Faro became the forced refuges, while at Madeira Airport terminal, uncertainty dominates the departures board.
The New Year began with much frustration for thousands of passengers who depend on the operational capacity of Madeira Airport to land or even depart from the archipelago – a runway that, on this day, January 1, 2026, is severely hampered by gusts of wind that, at their maximum strength, have already exceeded 100 km/h.
Strong winds have so far forced a total of nine aircraft to divert to other airports, leaving thousands of passengers stranded and causing a bottleneck in the departures area.
At just 1:00 AM, with winds reaching gusts of around 72 km/h, TAP Air Portugal was forced to abort its first flight of the day. Flight TP1697, originating from Lisbon, was unable to land and returned to the Portuguese capital, marking the beginning of a dismal day for operations.
In the following hours, the situation worsened drastically. Between 4:00 AM and 7:00 AM, IPMA recorded an escalation in the intensity of the gusts: 90, 91, 92 and a maximum peak of 103 km/h. During this period, the airport was technically closed to any landing attempts.
| Time | Intensity (km/h) |
|---|---|
| 00:00 | 72 km/h |
| 1 hour | 80 k/h |
| 2:00 AM | 83 km/h |
| 3:00 AM | 90km/h |
| 4:00 AM | 91 km/h |
| 5:00 AM | 92 km/h |
| 6:00 AM | 103 km/h |
| 7:00 AM | 98 km/h |
| 8:00 AM | 86 km/h |
| 9:00 AM | 80 k/h |
Mid-morning, between 10:00 and 11:15, there was a window of opportunity, with the wind dropping to 46 km/h and 62 km/h. This was the only period of relative normality, during which Eurowings, easyJet, Edelweiss flights landed, as well as the first TAP flights of the morning. However, the calm was short-lived.
At 11:35 AM, with the wind rising again to 77 km/h, the divergences returned in force:
- 11:35 AMThe Condor , coming from Munich (DE1572) , was the first to abandon Santa Cruz after the situation worsened, diverting to Las Palmas (LPA) .
- 11:50 AMThe Transavia flight from Paris – Orly (TO7694) followed the same route, also heading to Las Palmas (LPA) .
- 12:10 PMWith gusts already reaching 83 km/h , easyJet , coming from Bristol (U22877) , opted for the closest alternative, landing in Porto Santo (PXO) .
- 12:25 PMThe Condor (DI6506) , coming from Hamburg , also did not find suitable conditions and diverted to Porto Santo (PXO) .
- 12:45 PMTwo simultaneous diversions with the wind fixed at 83 km/h : the Condor flight from Dusseldorf (DE1414) continued to Las Palmas (LPA) , while the Ryanair flight from Lisbon (FR88) diverted to Porto Santo (PXO) .
Then, in the early afternoon, came the longest and most complex diversion of the day. At 1:10 pm, the Condor flight from Leipzig (DI6578), facing gusts of 76 km/h and congestion on the usual alternate routes, was forced to divert to Faro Airport.
The atmosphere at the airport is therefore one of exhaustion. According to reports from some passengers to DIÁRIO, the departure lounges are full of tourists who have finished their holidays and many students from Madeira who, on this January 1st, were trying to return to the mainland to resume the school year. With no planes on the ground, the “estimated departures” on the screens are being successively postponed, depending on an improvement in the wind in Santa Cruz.
The situation has improved in the late afternoon, allowing flights to land., but the situation will take a while to get better and to get everyone to where they want to be .