Hundreds of passengers have had to spend the night at the Son Sant Joan airport, in Palma, after a day of air chaos as a result of the strong storms that swept across the archipelago yesterday. Aena informs that 56 flights were canceled but the strong storm caused general delays in the almost 1,000 flights scheduled at the Balearic airport. It is estimated that the delays and cancellations may have affected more than 100,000 people.
Elsa Blasco, one of those affected, explains that she had to take a flight to Barcelona at 10:35 p.m., which was initially delayed until 12:20 a.m. on Monday and at 1:20 a.m. they reported that she was not leaving. The flight was delayed again until early today, but Blasco and two friends she was traveling with finally had to get stuck in Son Sant Joan, unable to catch a taxi because the service was completely overwhelmed, with hundreds of people in the same situation as them.
"The chairs were full of people and there were hundreds of people sleeping in the aisles, many of them children or babies," he says. Blasco adds that the airport service personnel explained to them that they had not seen a similar situation since the collapse that caused the eruption of the volcano in Iceland. "There were a lot of tourists trapped," he says.
The flight has not left this Monday at 08:00 either, as they had been informed, and the new departure time is 1:41 p.m. Blasco assures that the lack of information from the company has caused nerves among the passengers, upset by the lack of knowledge and by the situation they have experienced all night. Nervousness has increased to the point that Civil Guard agents and airport security services have had to intervene to report the new flight departure times.
Aena assures that the airport hopes to recover normality today after the day of chaos that took place yesterday. A person in charge of the company details that arrivals and departures are gradually returning to normal, although there are still problems derived from the general delays that occurred throughout the day. The weather is favorable and no further delays or cancellations are expected today, according to this spokesperson, unless there are again adverse events.
A serious storm swept the Balearic archipelago yesterday and caused moments of chaos in the Islands. Hurricane winds of more than 120 kilometers destroyed the moorings of a cruise ship and displaced the ship, weighing 140,000 tons, to the other side of the dock, where it collided with an oil tanker, without major consequences. Several people were injured and emergency services rescued several canoeists who were caught in the water by the storm.
