Etna eruption forces Catania Airport to suspend flights again

Catania Airport in Sicily has once again suspended flight operations after renewed activity from Mount Etna sent volcanic ash into the airspace around the airport.

Airport operator SAC said on Tuesday, 15 September, that the closure of airspace sectors B3 and C1 had been extended, forcing the suspension of both arrivals and departures until 22:00 local time. Flights scheduled to land in Catania have been diverted to other airports, with Palermo among the main alternatives.

Italy’s National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology (INGV) has raised the aviation alert level to red. The ash plume from Etna has reached approximately 4,000 metres and is moving towards the Catania area. The volcano has been producing near-continuous ash emissions from its Northeast Crater, together with weak Strombolian activity.

The latest disruption comes only weeks after a major Etna eruption caused widespread disruption at Catania during August. More than 600 flights were diverted and more than one-third of almost 2,000 flights were cancelled during the worst period of that event.

Catania is Italy’s fifth-busiest airport and serves more than 12 million passengers a year. The repeated closures caused by Etna have also reignited debate in Italy about the airport’s location, around 30 kilometres from Europe’s highest active volcano.