Aeroporto da Madeira

We have an afternoon flight to Zurich, and only 6km to travel to the airport, so we had breakfast on the terrace before making our way to the airport late morning.

The road from Machico to the airport travels under the runway, between the supporting pylons - the runway extension completed in 2000 was built on a platform, partly over the ocean, supported by 180 columns, each about 70 m tall. The terminal itself is mostly underground.

We already had plenty of time to kill, but that was made worse by our plane from Zurich being an hour late leaving, so we were then scheduled to depart Funchal at 5.50pm.

The airport is constantly busy, averaging 84 aircraft movements a day, and handling over 4 million passengers a year. Fortunately the departure lounge is on the top level and has an outdoor viewing area which overlooks the runway!

By the time our departure time came around the original flight plan had expired, so we had another delay on the tarmac, finally taking off at 6.15pm.

We arrived Zurich at 10.50pm and were thankful that we booked an airport hotel, so we were in the room by 11.45pm (the bloke in front of us at reception didn't have a booking... and both hotels in this area are fully booked with a conference this week, so he may have been in for a long night!)Read more