A sweeping power outage brought Spain and Portugal to a standstill Monday, halting trains and causing major disruption at airports. At midnight, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez declared a state of emergency which is still in place today. Electricity was restored in more areas overnight with Red Eléctrica, a partly state-owned body that operates Spain's national grid, reporting that 99.16 per cent of power had been returned to the country this morning.
Portugal's national grid operator has confirmed that 6.2 million out of 6.5 million households now have power back again. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Though power has now been restored in many places, the lingering effects of the outage are still having some impact on travel in both Spain and Portugal. Here’s what travellers need to know about train services and flight operations in Spain and Portugal today.
Flight disruption continues as power returns The power outage sparked mayhem at airports in Spain and Portugal on Monday. There were no complete closures as airports were operating on backup generators. However, nearly 200 flights, mostly to and from Lisbon, are thought to have been cancelled yesterday.
Enaire, Spain's air navigation manager, has said that air traffic control has returned to normal at the three control centres affected by the power outage: Madrid, Barcelona and Seville. Despite this, many flights from Madrid, Barcelona and Seville are cancelled or delayed this morning as services return to normal. Enaire is advising passengers to check the status of their flight with their airline before they travel to the airport.
Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement A number of arrivals and departures from Lisbon airport have also been cancelled today, and others are operating with delays. The airport operator is advising passengers to contact their airline before heading to the airport. EasyJet offers stranded passengers free-of-charge transfers EasyJet released a statement yesterday saying that the blackout was impacting access to some airports and affecting its flight operations in Lisbon, Madrid and Barcelona.
"Like all airlines, we are experiencing some disruption to our flying programme meaning that some return flights from Lisbon and Madrid have been unable to operate," the airline said. "Our flying programme at Porto and Faro airports is operating as planned." The airline urged passengers to monitor local travel advice and flight trackers for updates.
Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement They also say passengers in Spain or Portugal who are unable to travel are being provided with free-of-charge transfers within 72 hours or a flight voucher, according to the BBC. Train networks in Spain and Portugal are slowly returning to normal Train services in both countries were thrown into chaos yesterday, with the power outage still impacting rail services today. Emergency services in Spain said that they had rescued around 35,000 passengers stranded on railways and metro systems on Monday when trains were brought to a standstill.
Spanish rail operator Renfe has said that urban train services in Madrid will operate at 50 per cent of capacity today. High-speed and long-distance services between Madrid and Barcelona, Valencia, Murcia, Alicante, the Basque Country and Algeciras have all resumed normal operation. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Metro services in Madrid also resumed a partial service at 8:00 am this morning, with around 80 per cent of trains set to run during rush hour.
"Metro de Madrid is starting to run at 8:00 a.m. throughout the network, except Line 7A," Isabel Díaz Ayuso, President of the Community of Madrid, wrote on X. "Eighty percent of the trains will be running during a normal morning rush hour. "All the lines of EMTmadrid and Interurbanos are 100% operational and will be free throughout the day.
"The six transport interchanges in the region remain open as normal." Related Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Portugal’s rail network was also hit by the blackout, but travellers were already braced for disruption due to a national strike, which saw train services suspended on Monday anyway. Although there were outages in some parts of France, too, trains don’t seem to have been affected.
“In France, homes were without power for several minutes in the Basque Country. All power has since been restored,” said RTE, the French electricity operator.
