Over 100 flights cancelled at El Prat due to the storm

The rainstorm hitting Barcelona left more than 100 flights cancelled at El Prat airport, as reported by Hosteltur. The episode paralysed part of the operation at one of Europe's busiest hubs for Caribbean traffic, and long queues of rebooked passengers built up in the terminals for hours.

For Dominican tourism this is no distant anecdote. El Prat handles a good share of the connections between Europe and Punta Cana, La Romana or Santo Domingo, so when a hub like this jams, the ripple reaches the resorts: arrivals that never land, rooms left empty, tour operators renegotiating transfers with only hours of notice.

The takeaway is clear. Air connectivity into the Dominican Republic has grown strongly, but it still leans heavily on a small set of European airports. Every rainy season, strike or congestion spell in Madrid or Barcelona exposes that dependency. For Dominican hoteliers and tour operators, reinforcing direct routes from secondary European airports and alternative North American markets is the move that protects revenue and occupancy when the weather turns ugly across the Atlantic.