Runway blocked to prevent landing of IB/KLM
 

Airport staff in Guayaquil/Ecuador block the runway to prevent Iberia and KLM planes to land there - they were trying to evacuate tourists ... city mayor prohibited the landing.

Sauve qui peut! ("Every town for themselves.")

Medieval madness.

Seen this before unfortunately in the 70s -80s to prevent hijacked aircraft to refuel. Ordering vehicles on a runway to prevent an aircraft to land is a criminal act. If IATA has balls they would make a data base of people responsible for these kind of actions and ban them from flying on any of their airlines for life..:*.

The incredible thing is a local mayor prohibits I'national airlines from landing to take people OUT - not bringing people in ...the IB a/c only had 11 crew on board.

This is utter madness and criminal.

We were waiting at the departure gate at Quito (UIO) when this happened. All (international and domestic) passenger operations at UIO and I believe all other Ecuador airports had been cancelled, except for one KLM and one Iberia, both also planned to route through Guayaquil (GYE). KLM was routed AMS-UIO-GYE, Iberia MAD-GYE-UIO.

Quito is in lock-down, only essential road traffic, citizens confined to home. Only airport taxis allowed to the airport, even the shuttle from the airport hotel (500m?) is stopped. All passengers (approx 500 total) for both KL and IB are in the closed international departures lounge. One gate area is open, only facility open a single water dispenser. First information was when KLM crew walked through arrived (presumably from hotel) to great applause. After a a few minutes Captain made announcement that KL would not be routing through GYE due to "a problem at the airport", so now returning direct to AMS with possibility of a tech stop. This was just about the time the IB aircraft would have been leaving GYE for UIO.

I was aware that although our Iberia aircraft was originally just MAD-UIO-MAD, it was being actually been re-routed via GYE first, as the MAD-GYE-MAD flight previous day had been cancelled. I was able to contact our local travel agent who was locked in at home in Quito, who did some checking and referred initially to a "FIGHT" at GYE airport - later clarified to "closure by the authorities" but as shown in the clip. I relayed this to the local staff at the gate who were not aware of it, but said the aircraft had to through GYE to pick up up crew.

My biggest concern then was that if the Iberia aircraft was (a) on the ground in GYE it would be trapped, or (b) that if it had NOT landed but diverted to UIO it would have needed crew still left in GYE to operate back. Fortunately for us, it did divert to UIO and was carrying an extra crew. So in the end it returned with us about 2 hours behind schedule, with the passengers unaware what a narrow escape they had had, while the other pax who had checked in GYE were left stranded. I can only guess that the outbound flight was not being counted as duty time! Whole thing appears to be part of a political rivalry between Quito (capital) and Guayaquil, the industrial centre which was only recently overtaken by Quito as biggest population.

https://www.web24.news/u/2020/03/thi...om-madrid.html

PS from the timing I don't think the Iberia flight ever started an approach to GYE, diversion was from cruise.
PPS Having booked business class months before on full fare, got bumped down as the outbound pilots took our seats....!

Thanks for the first-hand report, slast ! I read elsewhere that the mayor responsible for the closure is now Covid positive - karma...