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Thousands of tourists’ summer travel plans have been disrupted after torrential rain caused flights arriving and departing Mallorca to be cancelled this week.
An Isolated High-Level Depression (DANA) – where a cold front clashes with warm air and produces heavy storms – has swept the Balearic Islands with high winds and strong rainfall since Wednesday.
At holiday hotspot Mallorca’s Palma Airport, Aena, a Spanish airport operator, reported over 50 cancelled flights on 14 August, with residents urged to stay indoors.
State Meteorological Agency Aemet issued an orange weather alert in Mallorca on Thursday (15 August) due to the high risk of storms and 62mph winds.
The national weather service wrote on X/Twitter: “Heavy showers with strong winds and hail will continue in the Mediterranean and the Balearic Islands. Thursday morning and Thursday morning will be very adverse in the archipelago: the rain could reach torrential intensity.”
FlightRadar24 data shows that 77 per cent of flights at the Mallorcan aviation hub experienced delays on Thursday, and 84 flights were cancelled.
Although the worst of the storm has passed, a third day of bad weather and further delays are expected to halt holidaymakers today.
As of this morning (16 August), current disruptions show an average delay of 48 minutes and two cancelled flights.
Yesterday, Ryanair criticised the “nonsensical” decision by Spanish Air Traffic Control (ATC) to block inbound aircrafts from landing at Palma due to the weather when departures were “allowed to continue as normal”.
Ryanair’s chief operations officer, Neal McMahon, said: “This is the latest example of terrible Air Traffic Control performance this summer, which has caused repeated and unnecessary disruption to passengers. Ryanair once again calls on Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, to reform the shambolic ATC services.”
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