The airport of Catania in Sicily will remain closed until the afternoon of Saturday, August 15, due to ash from the ongoing activity of Mount Etna, which over the past week has already caused the cancellation or diversion of hundreds of flights. Specifically, all arrivals and departures will be suspended until 2:00 p.m. local time (3:00 p.m. Greek time) on August 15, according to an announcement from the airport’s managing company, SAC.
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Catania airport closure extended: What passengers are advised to do
Catania airport is the fifth busiest airport in Italy. Passengers are advised to check the status of their flights with their airlines before heading to the airport. The restrictions are being enforced at the peak of the summer travel season, affecting thousands of passengers while putting additional pressure on Sicily’s other airports.
Around 630 flights diverted to other airports
The current disruptions are the most severe to affect Catania airport in the last 20 years, according to SAC sources who spoke to the Italian news agency ANSA.
Between August 6 and August 12, more than 30% of the 1,974 scheduled flights at Catania were cancelled, with approximately 630 flights diverted to other airports.
Chaos and hardship for stranded travelers
Thousands of travelers have been stranded due to the prolonged closure. Some have been stuck inside the terminals for days, sleeping wherever they can find space.
“We were supposed to leave on Wednesday, but our flight was cancelled. Then it was rescheduled for Friday. Now that flight has been cancelled too,” said Antonella Tirante Varnakulasuriya Costa, from Messina, Sicily, who is traveling to Sri Lanka via Dubai.
Mateus Paulo Neto, from Brazil, said that the repeated schedule changes had turned the end of his vacation into a maddening ordeal. “Our flight has been changed twice and we’re trying to get to Olbia (in Sardinia), but nobody has helped us. We have no information — just emails that don’t fully explain the changes,” he said.
The forced closure has reignited a long-running debate in Sicily about whether the main airport on the island’s eastern side is dangerously vulnerable to Mount Etna’s frequent eruptions. “It is hard to deny that the events of recent days lead to one conclusion: it is not the volcano that is in the wrong place, but the airport,” said Italy’s Civil Protection Minister and former Governor of Sicily, Nello Musumeci, in an official statement.
