Footage on social media showed passengers walking through terminals in darkness at around 12.30pm (local time) on Monday (28 April)

Local media outlets in Spain are reporting the power has been cut at Madrid’s Barajas airport. The airport handed 66.2 million passengers last year, making it the country’s busiest airport.

Update: Spain and Portugal scramble to restore travel links following mass power outage

Spanish airport operator, Aena, posted on X: "Due to the power outage, some incidents are occurring in the #aeropuertos. Contingency generators are active.

"Check with your airline, as there may be issues with access and ground transportation." 

It confirmed there were "some delays" and the full impact on flights would depend on whether crews and passengers could arrive.

EasyJet confirmed to TTG it had been unable to operate three flights that had been due to return to the UK on Monday – two to Bristol and one to Luton.

In a statement, it said the power outages had impacted its operations at Lisbon, Madrid and Barcelona. It added its flying programme at Porto and Faro was operating as scheduled.

For passengers unable to travel today, they are being provided free of charge transfers to alternative easyJet flights within 72 hours or a flight voucher.

Jet2.com and Jet2holidays urged customers to leave plenty of time to travel to the airport, adding: "Our teams are closely monitoring the impact of this, and should anything change, we will provide further updates." 

Vueling said: "We are working to minimise the impact on our operations due to the power outage in Spain and other countries. Some of our flights may be affected. We continue to monitor the situation.

Portugal’s national carrier Tap Air Portugal has advised passengers not to travel to their departure airports.

"Due to the power cut in several European countries, the operation of airports is temporarily very limited," said the airline in a statement posted to social media. "Tap requests that you do not go to the airport until further information."

Tap serves the UK from all three of the country’s major airports – Lisbon, Porto and Faro.

Spanish carrier Iberia, by contrast, said in a post to X – in response to a passenger – that operations had not been affected by the outage.

Aviation analytics firm Cirium said there were 399 flights scheduled to depart the UK for Spain on Monday (28 April), equating to just over 75,000 seats (one-way), and 105 to Portugal, which amounts to just under 20,000 seats (also one-way).

In total, there were just over 3,000 flights scheduled to arrive into Spanish airports on Monday and roughly the same number scheduled to depart. In Portugal, there were 709 scheduled departures and 722 scheduled arrivals.

Cirium said nine flights from the UK to Portugal have been cancelled so far, while 96 flights departing Portuguese airports were axed and 45 flights from Spanish airports were cancelled in total on Monday. 

Spain’s national railway company, Renfe, said the country’s “entire national electricity grid was cut off” shortly after midday.  “Trains stopped” and were “without departures” at all stations, it added.

Other reports from Spain suggest Madrid’s traffic network has ground to a halt with traffic lights affected, and many metro services having to have been evacuated in darkness.

According to the Reuters news agency, the metro is closed in Lisbon and Porto and trains are not running.

Reports received by TTG indicate mobile phone networks are not operating consistently in either Spain or Portugal at this time.

Power networks, Spain’s Red Electrica and Portugal’s E-Redes, have confirmed a widespread outage across the Iberian Peninsula and are working to restore the grid. Power was briefly lost in some parts of France, the BBC reports.

The Foreign Office has updated its travel advice for Spain, Portugal and Andorra. "We are aware of reports of power outages across Andorra, mainland Spain and mainland Portugal and are monitoring the situation," read the update, which was issued at about 3pm.

"There may be travel disruption, check with your tour operator or airline for more information before travelling. Follow the advice of the local authorities and monitor local updates."

This story is being updated as and when we get new information.

Have any of your clients been affected by Monday’s power outage? We want to hear how you’re supporting them if you’ve had to step in. Please email feedback@ttgmedia.com with any reports.