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Iberian power outage causes flight disruptions in Spain and Portugal

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Iberian power outage causes flight disruptions in Spain and Portugal
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Barcelona-El Prat Airport | Official Website

Large sections of Spain and Portugal experienced extensive power outages today, causing significant disruptions. Among the most affected sectors were airports, which depend heavily on electricity for operations. This disruption spread to other public transportation sectors like railways, compounding the chaos.

The power outage began just after midday local time, as reported by The i Paper. Javier Blas of Bloomberg noted on X that the outage resulted in "a loss of >10 GW of demand, from ~26GW to ~12GW in a few seconds." The BBC confirmed these widespread power outages across Spain, as Red Electrica worked to restore power.

The blackouts significantly impacted aviation, with The i Paper detailing that Madrid Barajas Airport lost power. Euro News also reported complete standstills at airports, including delayed flights from Valencia. Aena, Spain’s airport management company, stated that "Due to the power outage, some incidents are occurring [at Spanish airports]. Contingency generators are active. Check with your airline, as there may be issues with access and ground transportation."

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While some airports have used contingency generators to partially restore operations, the disruption continued to affect services. Sky News quoted a traveler at Barcelona-El Prat Airport mentioning that although "power is on again now, but still no gate screens are on." Other reports indicated challenges for passengers traveling to departure airports, with disruptions impacting public transport services such as the Madrid Metro.

Data from FlightAware in the afternoon showed delayed but few canceled flights to and from Spanish and Portuguese airports. In Madrid alone, 50 departures and 30 arrivals faced delays, with one cancellation each way. According to aviation analytics company Cirium, approximately 709 flights with 122,870 seats were scheduled to depart Portugal, alongside 3,005 scheduled flights with 520,777 seats from Spain on April 28, 2025.

By 15:45 UTC, Cirium reported 96 canceled departures in Portugal, with Lisbon losing nearly 30% of its flights. Spain saw 45 canceled flights, with Barcelona and Madrid experiencing smaller but notable cancellation rates of 3% and 2.6%, respectively.

Both Spain and Portugal’s major airports started planning strategies to manage the lack of power by the mid-afternoon. Portugal’s Lisbon Airport initially paused arrivals, then allowed a reduced number of flights starting at 16:30 local time. Similarly, Madrid Barajas Airport limited arrivals to 20 per hour, down from the usual 60. In contrast, Barcelona reduced inbound capacity by 50%, which still resulted in significant delays.

The disruption’s full impact remains unclear as recovery efforts continue.

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