I am flying to Madrid this evening again. I am lately using air transportation instead of train or my own car for the Madrid-Alicante trip when I come to meet my family here. For me, flights have several logistic advantages to train, as I live and work pretty close to the airport in Madrid, and the total journey normally takes less than the train. Let me remark “normally”, as I am experiencing some issues… Last two times I’ve come by plane, I arrived with a significant delay to Alicante’s airport.

A couple of months ago, my Ryanair flight was diverted to Valencia’s airport. (180 km north) due to the fog. Alicante does not usually have that thick fog but at that moment, the visibility conditions did not allow the landing… and the captain did not try a second time (remember, this was a Ryanair flight) and we went to Valencia. We were provided a bus connection to Alicante’s airport, where we arrived with 5 hours of delay, and a bit sick after the bus trip.

For the Christmas holidays, I bought an Iberia flight, because of several reasons: convenient prices, better (planned) schedules and my desire not to get the unexpected result of the previous occasion. Result: Barajas Terminal 4 (the one devoted to Iberia’s flights) was a big chaos. Over 30 flights had delays of more than 2 hours when I arrived, and there was no consistency at all in the delivered information: they announced gates for flights which were delayed, they changed them afterwards, they cancelled flights with gates and imminent departure…

I was lucky enough to meet a friend there (with whom I share the 2 extra hours in the airport) and to have a ticket for my flight, and not for the previous one to Alicante, as this was postponed for the following day without further explanation. It was strange, as there was no apparent reason for this chaotic situation: there was no announced strike nor bad weather (most common reasons for this kind of extensive delays in Barajas). Final result: 3 hours delay in Alicante’s airport (we stayed for 1 hour in the plane in Madrid).

So, I’m concerned about today’s flight punctuality…