Madeira Airport wind limits, diversions and your rights

Portugal’s official aeronautical publication (the AIP, from NAV), in the version in force since 1 October 2026, sets the maximum wind for landing and take-off at Funchal according to the direction it blows from. Compliance is mandatory: if the wind is above the limit as the plane reaches the approach, the tower does not clear it to land and it climbs away.

For take-off the limits are 20 to 25 knots of average wind, with no gust limit. But when planes cannot get in, departures go too: on 12 September 2026, 17 arrivals and 14 departures were cancelled.

The limits were set in 1964, from studies flown in a DC-3 when the runway was 1,600 metres long. They have not changed: the October 2026 version has the same figures. ANAC, Portugal’s civil aviation authority, is the body that can revise them.

Since 10 November 2025 the airport has run MAD Winds, a NAV system of radar and LIDAR that measures wind more than 10 km out, on a one-year trial. NAV says about 80% of wind diversions happen with wind no more than 3 knots above the limits: that is the margin where the radar’s data could justify a revision.

In May 2026 there were still no reports, and the Secretary of State for Infrastructure told parliament that the average wind at the airport has risen by 3 knots since 2015. As of 2 November 2026, ANAC had made no decision.

There are no official statistics for wind diversions and cancellations: ANA, NAV and ANAC do not publish them. What exists are the figures for each day, which ANA releases and the press reports.

• Porto Santo: the most common diversion, 58 km away. From there to Funchal there are 2 Binter flights a day and one ferry, which can be full: on 12 September 2026 diverted passengers could not get a seat on the Lobo Marinho.
• Canary Islands: on 12 September 2026, flights from Geneva and London Stansted went to Tenerife South, and from Lyon and Katowice to Gran Canaria.
• Lisbon: that same day, a flight from Brussels; in July 2025, an easyJet flight as well.

Any month. In summer the nortada, the northerly wind, blows often, and north is the direction with the lowest limit: between 30 June and 6 July 2025 more than 70 flights were cancelled. In winter it is storms, with southerly and westerly wind, rain and poor visibility, and every landing at Funchal is visual.

With no official series, there is no rigorous way to say which month is worst.

• Compensation: none. EU Regulation 261/2004 treats bad weather as an extraordinary circumstance (recital 14 and Article 5(3)), so the airline does not pay the €250 or €400 it would owe for another cancellation.
• Refund or a new flight: still owed. You choose between a refund within 7 days or another flight to your destination at the earliest opportunity, or on a date of your choosing (Article 8).
• Care: meals and drinks while you wait, a hotel if you need to stay one or more nights, and transport between the airport and the hotel (Article 9). The EU Court of Justice ruled that in extraordinary circumstances this duty has no limit in nights or money (McDonagh, C-12/11).
• Diverted flights: a flight that lands at an airport not serving your destination, such as Lisbon or the Canaries, generally counts as cancelled (case C-826/19), with the same rights to a new flight and care.
• Flights from the UK: UK261, the British version of the regulation, applies to departures from the UK.

Keep the receipts for any meals, hotel and transport you pay for yourself: the airline reimburses what was necessary, appropriate and reasonable.

When the flight and accommodation are sold together as a package, there is extra protection. If you cannot get home because of unavoidable and extraordinary circumstances, such as wind, the organising travel agency pays for the accommodation you need, of equivalent category where possible, for up to 3 nights per traveller (EU Directive 2015/2302, Article 13(7); Portuguese Decree-Law 17/2018, Article 30(3)).

The agency must also help without delay, with useful information and help finding another way to travel (Article 30(1)). The 3-night cap does not apply to people with reduced mobility, pregnant women, unaccompanied children or anyone needing specific medical care, if the agency was told 48 hours before. Your rights against the airline still stand.

1. Don’t book an onward flight on a separate ticket for the same day, especially on the way home: if the Funchal flight is cancelled, the connection is lost and nobody pays for it.
2. Follow arrivals and departures on the Madeira Airport website and your airline’s messages, which tell you about diversions and the new flight.
3. If your plane diverts, stay with the airline: it organises the rest of the journey and the care you are owed.
4. Keep receipts for what you pay (meals, hotel, transport) to claim it back.
5. If you land after 22:00 there is no Aerobus: it is a metered taxi, or Bolt and Uber.