Madeira Airport converted into dormitory

Photo of a different situation in the past, but in a scenario identical to that of the last 72 hours. Photo archive/Aspress.

Madeira Airport has turned into a veritable dormitory, according to passengers stranded due to wind-related flight cancellations.

“The airport is out of control,” stresses the witness of the situation. He cites the example of Ryanair, which “only guarantees flights for August 29th and 30th” and describes the situation of the passengers as a “nightmare.” And he adds: “They leave people to fend for themselves,” he complains.

Hundreds of passengers have no place to stay and no ground support from the airlines. There are mattresses lying around everywhere and if that is not enough, there are also “people sleeping on the floor”.

As we reported, the airport had one of the worst days of the year, perhaps in a long time. Despite not being closed to landings or takeoffs, it managed to land just over two dozen flights during the day. Between cancellations and diversions, which were first and then canceled, 28 flights arrived and just as many took off that Sunday.

The last flight just landed at 21:35, a TAP flight from Lisbon. There is one last flight, in the case of Binter, which was scheduled to take place shortly before 22:00 and should already be taking off from Porto Santo at that time.

Roughly speaking, there will be a few hundred people occupying a large part of the airport’s departure area and a little of the entire infrastructure.

At least two flights have already been cancelled for tomorrow, but many of these passengers are hoping that there will still be seats available on the flights that can land – the wind is expected to continue to make operations difficult. In fact, many of those who have booked their flights for tomorrow will join the desperate hoping that their flight will not be so “lucky”.

From Diário Notícias

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