Storm Marta causes flights to be diverted to Alicante and delays at Malaga Airport

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Strong gusts of wind made it difficult for planes to land causing an afternoon of complications for pilots and passengers

Matías Stuber

Saturday, 7 February 2026, 20:30

A Wizz Air flight departing at 2.30pm from Cluj-Napoca (Romania) and scheduled to land at around 6pm in Malaga was diverted to Alicante this Saturday. A Ryanair flight, departing from Marrakesh, suffered the same fate. Another Ryanair flight from Tetouan also ended up in Alicante. A British Airways flight from London landed in Almeria. The Ryanair plane from Tangier was diverted to Valencia.

These diversions are just some of the consequences of this Saturday's Storm Marta at Malaga Airport. A complicated day, both for pilots and travellers, which left a succession of diverted flights and delays of several hours. By seven o'clock in the evening, at least eight diversions had been recorded on Flight Radar.

In addition, there were numerous delays, some exceeding two hours. Strong gusts of wind made landing difficult or impossible. On Friday, a Lufthansa plane had to abort its landing when it was already touching down on the runway, tossed about by the wind.

Storm Marta gave no respite. Aemet activated the amber level warning and announced rainfall of up to 100mm in total (80 in 12 hours) in the areas where the latest storms have been most intense, being of Atlantic origin and with westerly winds.

Later in the evening, operations at Malaga airport returned to a certain degree of normality and planes were able to land around the scheduled time.