Flights at Vincenzo Bellini Airport were suspended until at least 2pm local time on Saturday after continuing volcanic activity from Mount Etna forced the closure of Sicily’s busiest airport. The shutdown left hundreds of passengers waiting and pushed the disruption into a second day.
The scale was already clear by Friday morning. More than a third of the 1,974 flights scheduled between Thursday of last week and Wednesday of this week were canceled, while another 600 were diverted. For Antonella Thirande Warnakulasuriya Costa, who was trying to reach Sri Lanka via Dubai, the setback came in sequence: “We were due to leave on Wednesday, but our flight was cancelled; then they rescheduled it for Friday. Now that one’s been cancelled too,” she said.
The numbers matter because Catania airport usually handles at least 40,000 passengers a day, making it one of Sicily’s most important travel hubs. Yet it sits 30 kilometres, or 20 miles, south of Mount Etna, so every burst of volcanic activity carries the same basic risk: ash, reduced visibility and a runway that cannot safely keep operating at normal levels. That proximity has renewed questions about whether a major airport can function smoothly beside Europe’s tallest and most active volcano.
By Thursday evening, about 300 passengers were still waiting to be transferred to another airport, and Trenitalia added six additional trains to the Palermo-Messina-Catania route to help move travelers around the disruption. Ash from the eruption even reached as far as North Africa, showing how far the plume traveled before falling out of the airspace that matters most for flights in Sicily.
The practical issue for passengers is not whether they can claim compensation, but whether this kind of disruption qualifies. Volcanic eruptions are treated as extraordinary circumstances, which means travelers can be left carrying the cost of a trip that is delayed, rerouted or canceled while the airport waits for the air to clear. Flights were due to remain suspended until at least 2pm local time on Saturday, and that deadline is now the point that decides whether Catania starts to reopen or remains at the mercy of Mount Etna.
