Overview
- A sudden electrical fault in the control tower forced the pause of landings and takeoffs earlier in the afternoon, prompting airport authorities to tell passengers to check their flight status.
- The outage produced dozens of delays, at least four confirmed cancellations and 10 diversions out of 1,124 scheduled operations that day.
- Some passengers reported waiting more than two hours on board aircraft, and several travelers posted complaints on social media about long waits and unclear information.
- AENA and the company that manages the infrastructure announced that 100% of the tower’s power was restored and that departures were fully operational by 16:00, with arrivals resuming progressively.
- The incident occurred during peak summer traffic at El Prat, which handled roughly 5.8 million passengers in July, and it could cause ripple delays across the afternoon schedule as controllers use larger spacing between aircraft to restore normal flow.