There are queues with people too close to each other outside Lisbon’s Humberto Delgado Airport. They do not have confirmed flights for the same day and the entrance is conditioned, only a limited number of people can enter at a time to go to the counters of the airlines. But for that it was necessary that the counters were open. They are not.
Lisbon airport, the one where a pin could no longer fit, is now a strangely empty place. There are only a few cafes and pastries open, half a dozen check in and little more. Flights arrive and depart with droppers, mostly to and from European destinations, and passengers flow at a safe distance from each other. The lobbies and the corridors are empty and perhaps that is why it is better to see that there are many small groups of people there with masks on their faces and many suitcases, wandering in endless waiting.
Part of them were passengers of the MS Sovereign, the cruise ship coming from Recife that was destined for the port of Lisbon but, last Sunday, was diverted to Cadiz. They came overland to the Portuguese capital, where they had their accommodation scheduled for a week and managed to fly to this Sunday night. Many others are mere detached tourists, some from companies that meanwhile “disappeared” without a trace or alternative.
“We were abandoned”, say Jorge, Sónia, Rosa, Ijacira and Helder, sitting in the luggage carts in a corner of the airport where they have already spent three nights. There they met, all customers of the same company, Air Europa, which in the meantime no longer has a counter at Humberto Delgado Airport. “Even the company plaque was taken away! They don’t answer the phone, they don’t answer emails. The only message we received was an email apologizing and saying that there will only be a flight on April 30th! ”, They tell the PUBLIC.
They met at the airport, the result of the same uncertainty. Most were in Portugal for tourism, but Jorge worked here. “I was unemployed, I sent all the money to my family in Brazil and I had bought this trip three months ago. I have seven euros in the account ”, he laments.
Rosa was on vacation with Sónia in Portugal for 20 days. When they heard that the flight had been canceled, they went to the Brazilian consulate in Porto: “It was closed, they don’t answer the phone. We had no one to talk to: no embassy, no consulate, no airline. No one”. They have been at the airport for three days, they do not leave because they know that later they will not be able to enter again. Helder Oliveira drinks a drink from a straw under the mask and repeats: “We were abandoned”.
Lucimar, Karine and Marta came to visit a family member for a month. They had passage to the 30th but managed to anticipate for this Sunday. Or they thought they had succeeded. We found them pushing their bags onto the counter check in at 2 pm, ensuring that they had confirmed the flight Paris – São Paulo – Vitória. Three hours later they were leaving the airport: “It was canceled. Now only tomorrow, via Amsterdam ”.
Court appeal yielded flight
Another luck had some of the cruise passengers MS Sovereign, or Sovereign ship, as they call it. We found three groups, all with check in made for this Sunday night’s flights to Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo. Some managed to do it by force.
“We appealed to the court, filed an injunction [providência cautelar] in Brazilian justice and the judge immediately ordered TAP in Brazil to make our immediate departure ”, says Sílvio Amorim. He is one of the lawyers and company administrators of the group of eight people who tells the story: “It started right away with the closure of the port of Lisbon, which forced us to disembark in Cadiz, thanks to the Government of Spain, which opened our doors, otherwise we will be sailing aimlessly ”.
Upon arrival in Cádiz, the 1800 passengers were loaded by the travel agency on more than 50 buses bound for Lisbon, where they had their accommodation booked for a week: “All buses came ‘to spawn’ at Lisbon airport”. On the first day, Sílvio Amorim’s group still went to Óbidos, but as of Tuesday everyone was closed at the hotel and started trying to reschedule their return flights. But the prices were “exorbitant”.
When they realized that their flight, scheduled for Saturday, had been canceled, they were no longer able to speak to the National Air Transport Company: “TAP did not answer or was unable to enter the system”, he says. It was there that they resorted to Brazilian justice and untied the knot.
Other passengers of the Sovereign did nothing more than wait a few days to get a flight, after having canceled the initially planned. For Andreia and Edivaldo, it was the trip of a lifetime, but they became “the worst vacation ever” and “an exorbitant price”, so much so that they are not even able to say: “There is a lot on the credit card. Since we left Brazil until today, the real has devalued a lot, we don’t even know how much we have already spent ”.
The small apartment they had rented for one night in Lisbon had to be multiplied by four days and six people, plus two couples they had met on the cruise: “They were put out of hotels and had nowhere to go. They had to sleep on the sofa and on the floor ”. They smile at the photograph and then comment that they haven’t smiled for days.
Luís Fernando, Adriana and Elias also came to Soberano and, like the others, were caught without a hammock in the middle of the holidays. They wanted to return to Brazil sooner but “they asked for a thousand euros for each one”. They gave up and waited. They closed themselves in the hotel for a week: “It was the worst part, such a beautiful city outside and we were unable to leave”. They promise to return one day …
Fantasia passengers will be repatriated
A completely different situation will be that of passengers MS Fantasia, the cruise ship that docked this Sunday morning in the port of Lisbon. The more than 1330 passengers will be repatriated next week for the countries of origin, in a joint operation of the Directorate-General for Consular Affairs, the Foreigners and Borders Service and the Directorate-General for Health, among other entities.
