Flights to Catania International Airport, Sicily, were disrupted again over the weekend after Italy’s National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology reported a ‘lava fountain’ gushing from Mount Etna on the morning of Sunday 4 August. While normal service has now resumed in theory, some departures and arrivals are showing delays and would-be flyers are advised to keep checking relevant airport and airline updates as the situation could be subject to sudden changes.
Why does Etna erupt so often?
Standing at 3,324 metres (nearly 11,000 feet), Etna is Sicily’s most active volcano, with three main craters making up its summit: the Voragine Crater, the North East Crater, and the South East Crater, but other “newer” craters exist as well.
It has been undergoing a particularly lively spell over the last five years, with frequent eruptions. Remarkably, despite representing what scientists at the National Institute called in a 2021 paper “a serious threat to the communities located around it, producing various dangerous effects on inhabitants, properties and communication routes”, no lava has affected any nearby conurbations since the 19th century. In another plus, the Institute notes that the volcano’s active state represents “an ideal laboratory to improve volcano monitoring and forecasting of eruptive events.”
However, with the latest eruption of the Voragine Crater, towns nearby have been showered in black volcanic ash and a cloud of ash-filled smoke has plumed several kilometres into the sky.
As a result, some flights, including from Warsaw and Copenhagen, were cancelled amid restrictions on incoming flights. Aircraft heading into the east coast airport were limited to six per hour and a section of the facility was closed off. This meant disruption and delays of up to three hours for some holidaymakers and other arrivals, with some flights redirected to land at Sicily’s alternative airports, Palermo and Comiso.
While there are both car hire services at all the major airports and coach or bus routes for domestic travel, being redirected may still entail some long detours across what is the Mediterranean’s largest island for passengers to reach their final destinations. It takes around eight hours to cross the island by road transport.
If your flight has been cancelled or delayed by more than three hours, airlines are required to offer you another flight or a refund, but this rule only applies when the carrier could have had some control over the situation, which is not the case with weather or geological events. Passengers who have experienced disruption are advised to contact their airline to check what services are being provided. If you have taken out travel insurance, verify the terms and conditions of your policy.
