Ash from Mount Etna volcano forces closure of Sicily's busiest airport during peak holiday week

Flights at Sicily's Catania airport will remain grounded until tomorrow afternoon due to ash from Mount Etna's continuous volcanic activity, as reported by airport operator SAC. This closure, spanning until 2pm local time on August 15, has suspended all arrivals and departures at the island's busiest airport, which handles a fifth of Italy's passenger traffic.

With the summer holiday season in full swing, the disruption has affected thousands of passengers and placed added strain on Sicily's other airports. Mount Etna, Europe's tallest and most active volcano, regularly disrupts Catania airport operations, prompting the airport's management to sell at least a 51% stake in May. The current situation is the most severe to impact Catania airport in at least two decades, based on SAC sources cited by Italian news agency ANSA.

Between August 6 and 12, more than a third of the 1,974 scheduled flights were canceled, with around 630 diverted to alternate airports. Thousands of travelers have been stranded, some spending days in the terminal, sleeping wherever possible, and passing the time playing cards. Antonella Thirande Warnakulasuriya Costa, a traveler from Messina, Sicily, to Sri Lanka, expressed her frustration, saying, "We were due to leave on Wednesday, but our flight was cancelled; then they rescheduled it for today.

Now that one's been cancelled too." Matheus Paulo Neto, from Joao Pessoa, Brazil, recounted the repeated schedule changes as a "frustrating ordeal." The prolonged closure has reignited a debate in Sicily regarding the vulnerability of the island's main eastern airport to frequent eruptions by Mount Etna. Civil Protection Minister and former Sicily governor Nello Musumeci stated, "It is hard to deny that the events of recent days point to one conclusion: it is not the volcano that is in the wrong place, but the airport.

The issue is real and deserves serious, long-term reflection in the planning of major infrastructure."