Barcelona El Prat airport blocks all flights due to intense rain

The intense rainfall that has hit the Barcelona El Prat airport area beginning at 12:53 pm blocked all arriving and departing flights, but the airport resumed activity a bit over an hour later as the storm headed out to sea.

Air traffic controllers prohibited further take offs and delayed flights heading to Barcelona as well, and at least 26 flights were cancelled due to the rain.

Flights that had already taken off towards Barcelona were told to circle until granted permission to land, but at least five were redirected to other airports as they did not have enough fuel to do so, including an Easyjet flight from Basel, Switzerland, that was sent to the Girona airport and a Ryanair flight from Hamburg, Germany, that was sent to Reus.

By 1:58 pm on Saturday, flights had already begun to take off and land at Barcelona El Prat airport again, but have still been affected by significant delays and restrictions.