Mount Etna: flights suspended at Catania until 4 pm on Thursday – 700 flights cancelled in four days
Between 8 and 11 August, around 700 flights were cancelled or postponed. Over 250 flights were rescheduled at Palermo, Trapani and Comiso airports
Flights at Catania Airport will remain suspended until 4 pm tomorrow, Thursday 13 August, due to volcanic activity on Mount Etna. This was announced by SAC, the company that manages Vincenzo Bellini Airport, which confirmed the extension of the closure of sector B3 of the airspace and, consequently, the suspension of both arrivals and departures.
The new suspension prolongs an emergency that has been putting Sicilian air traffic under pressure for days, right in the middle of the summer holiday exodus. Between 8 and 11 August, including cancelled flights and missed arrivals and departures, around 700 flights were disrupted at Catania. There were around 400 departures cancelled, with a further 52 expected to be cancelled today, according to information published on the airport’s website.
A significant proportion of traffic has been diverted to the island’s other airports. Since the start of the emergency, more than 250 flights have been rescheduled to airports other than Catania. More than a hundred have been diverted to Comiso, whilst yesterday alone around fifty flights were transferred to Palermo and a further 22 to Trapani.
Once again today, the Sicilian airport network is handling some of the flights originally scheduled to operate from Fontanarossa. According to figures published by SAC, 50 scheduled departures from Catania have been rerouted: 33 will take off from Palermo, 14 from Trapani and three from Comiso. As for arrivals, 40 flights have been diverted to Palermo, 12 to Trapani and five to Comiso.
The changes particularly affect the airlines operating the largest number of flights at Catania Airport, including Ryanair, easyJet, Ita Airways and Wizz Air.
