Madeira airport to Funchalthe Aerobus timetable, taxis, Machico, Caniço, Calheta and late arrivals

Timetables and fares read on 10 October 2026. Madeira’s buses are mid-renumbering, and the operators reserve the right to change times without notice. Check the SIGA site before you rely on a time.

Short answer: take the Aerobus (line 500). It leaves the airport every 30 to 60 minutes from 08:30 to 22:00 (with a two-hour gap around midday at weekends), costs €6.70 on board, and reaches Avenida do Mar in the centre in about 24 minutes [1][3]. If you land after the last bus, or on 25 December, when it doesn’t run, the choice is a metered taxi from the rank on the arrivals floor or a transfer booked in advance [1][4]. For Machico next door, a handful of Expresso buses call at the airport on weekdays; for Caniço and Calheta there is no direct bus.

Your options at a glance

Option	Price (sources dated below)	Time	Best for
Aerobus, line 500	€6.70 on board, €5.55 on GIRO; child 6–12 €3.30 [3]	about 24 min to Av. do Mar, 50 min to Praia Formosa [1]	Hotels in the centre and the Lido, light luggage
Taxi from the rank	metered; the airport’s page (archived Aug 2025) gives a €4.00 weekday start; no fixed fare to Funchal [4]	19 km, about 19 min by car (model) [13]	Kids, three or four people, after 22:00
Taxi voucher or transfer, booked ahead	check the current fare [11]	as taxi	Late flights, a fixed price before you land
Hire car	varies, plus a €2 a day regional fee [12]	as taxi	The west (Calheta, Ponta do Sol) and the mountains

The Aerobus (line 500)

SIGA’s timetable index lists the Aerobus under its new line number, 500 [17]. The Aerobus is run by CAM (formerly SAM), the bus company for the east of the island. Its timetable PDFs now carry the CAM logo, though some files on the SIGA site are still named after SAM [1][5]. The bus leaves from outside the arrivals hall; the timetable calls the first stop simply “Aeroporto” [1].

Departures from the airport

Weekdays	Saturdays	Sundays and holidays
08:30, 09:00, 09:30, 10:00, 10:30, 11:00, 11:30, 12:00, then hourly 13:00 to 22:00	08:30 to 12:00 every 30 min, nothing between 12:00 and 14:00, then hourly 14:00 to 22:00	08:30, 09:00, 09:30, 10:30, 11:30, 12:00, nothing between 12:00 and 14:00, then hourly 14:00 to 22:00
18 departures	17 departures	15 departures

Source: SIGA Aerobus timetable [1]. No buses on 25 December [1].

The gap matters: land at 12:15 on a Saturday or Sunday and the next bus is at 14:00. That is where a taxi starts to make sense, especially with children.

Stops and times from the airport

The bus runs west along the coast road and through the city [1]:

Stop	Minutes from the airport
Boa Nova	15
Mercado (Farmers’ Market)	22
Avenida do Mar (city centre)	24
Avenida do Infante	32
Lido	38
Fórum Madeira	42
Praia Formosa (end of the line)	50

For the old town, the marina and the cable car to Monte, get off at Avenida do Mar. For hotels in the Lido area and along Estrada Monumental, stay on. The line ends at Praia Formosa, not in the centre, so don’t wait for a “last stop” in town.

Back to the airport

From Praia Formosa the first bus leaves at 07:00 every day and the last at 21:00, on Sundays too [1]. On weekdays they run at 07:00, then 08:00 and every 30 minutes to 12:00, then hourly to 21:00. On Saturdays they run at 07:00, 08:00, every 30 minutes from 08:30 to 11:00, then hourly from 13:00 to 21:00, and on Sundays the morning buses are 07:00, 08:00, 08:30, 09:30, 10:30 and 11:00, then hourly from 13:00 [1]. The timetable gives 15 to 30 minutes from Praia Formosa to Avenida do Mar, so from the centre add that to the departure time [1]. With an early-morning flight, the first bus may be too late; a taxi is the fallback.

Fares

Ticket	Adult	Child 6–12
On board	€6.70	€3.30
Loaded on a GIRO card	€5.55	€2.75

Source: TIIM/SIGA fare page [3]. The tariff lists child fares only for ages 6 to 12; it doesn’t say whether children under 6 travel free, so ask the driver.

The Regional Turístico tourist pass covers every bus on the island, the Aerobus included: 1 day €13.75, 2 days €18.35, 3 days €23.00, 5 days €29.50, 7 days €36.00; children 6 to 12 pay €7.10, €9.35, €11.70, €15.15 and €18.50 [3]. The ordinary day and 7-day passes don’t include the Aerobus [3]. Two Aerobus trips on GIRO cost €11.10, so the pass only pays off on days when you ride a lot of buses. How it compares with the ordinary week passes: Madeira without a car.

The fare page sits on tiim.pt, whose security certificate expired on 12 July 2026, so your browser may warn you [3].

Taxi

The taxi rank is at arrivals, on the ground floor (level 0) [4]. Taxis run on the meter. The airport publishes only how the meter starts: from €4.00 on weekdays, 20% more between 21:00 and 06:00 and all day on Saturdays, Sundays and holidays, and €1.50 extra for luggage or animals [4]. We took these from the airport’s page as archived in August 2025, because the live site blocks automated access. There is no published fixed fare to Funchal, so ask the driver for an estimate before you set off.

Taxi voucher. AITRAM, the island’s taxi association, sells point-to-point “Taxi-Voucher” fares online and at a shop in the airport [11]. Its price table didn’t load when we checked, so check the current fare on their site.

Bolt and Uber. We could not confirm that either operates at Madeira airport. Don’t count on an app as your only plan for a late arrival.

Child seats. We found no rule on child seats in Madeira taxis. If you need one, a pre-booked transfer or a hire car with a seat is the safer bet.

Arriving after 22:00

The last Aerobus leaves the airport at 22:00 every day [1]. In practice, if your flight lands after about 21:30, plan for one of these:

• Taxi from the rank: the meter starts at the night rate (20% above the €4.00 weekday start), plus €1.50 for luggage [4].
• A taxi voucher or transfer booked before you fly [11], so the price is fixed before you land.
• A hire car: check that the desk is still open when you land; desk hours are in Madeira car hire.
• A night near the airport: Machico is 5 km away [14], useful if you only want a bed and will move on in the morning.

Machico, Caniço and Calheta

Machico is the town next to the airport, about 5 km and 6 minutes by car on the routing model [14]. CAM’s Expresso between Funchal and Machico calls at the airport on only some trips: in the timetable linked from SIGA, four weekday runs from Funchal go via the airport (07:00, 11:00, 11:30 and 14:30 from Funchal), while 14 weekday runs from Machico do, between 06:30 and 17:30 [5][6]. The full Expresso timetable has 16 departure times from Funchal plus two school-period runs at existing times (17:30 and 18:30); from Machico it has 21 departure times plus a school-period extra at the existing 07:05 time [6]. Weekdays here means Monday–Friday excluding public holidays. The two Saturday Expresso runs, from Machico to Funchal at 07:45 and 08:30, are not marked via the airport. The PDF has no Sunday or public-holiday table; this is not evidence that Machico has no bus access on those days [6]. The slower line 23 (new 701) adds one weekday trip via the airport from Machico (15:20) and two on Saturdays (08:00 and 16:30 from Machico) [7]. Both PDFs explicitly exclude 25 December and have notes that refer to the 2024 school period, although SIGA still linked them when we checked on 11 October 2026, so check before you go. In practice, Machico from the airport is a short taxi ride.

Caniço: we found no direct bus from the airport in the SIGA timetables. Caniço’s bus is CAM line 2 (new 551) from Funchal, which runs from 07:30 to 23:45 [8], so by bus you would ride the Aerobus into Funchal and back out again. By taxi it is about 11 km and 11 minutes (model) [15]. One trap: line 503 to Boqueirão has a stop called “ESTR. Aeroporto”, but it is a road in Caniço, not the terminal [9].

Calheta is on the far side of the island, about 50 km and 49 minutes by car on the routing model [16]. There is no bus from the airport. From Funchal, the only fast direct bus (line 80, new 380) leaves once a day at 10:00 and reaches Vila da Calheta at 11:25 [10]; slower afternoon buses also get there (Funchal 16:05 every day and 17:40 on weekdays, see Madeira without a car), so arriving the same day by bus needs a landing by early afternoon. For Calheta, Ponta do Sol and the west, a hire car or a booked transfer is the realistic choice. Bases in the west compared: Ponta do Sol vs Funchal.

Hire car from the airport

Eight hire companies have desks in the arrivals hall (listed in our car hire guide), and the drive to Funchal is about 19 km and 19 minutes on the routing model [13]. Every hire contract signed from 1 June 2026 carries a regional fee of €2 for each full day, at most 10 days (€20), or €1 a day for zero-emission cars, charged by the hire company as a separate line [12]. Deposits, desk hours and child seats: Madeira car hire. Which days of a trip need a car at all: Madeira without a car.

Flights into FNC, and the wind that sometimes diverts them: flights to Madeira. Where to base yourself in the city: Funchal.