Tenerife North–Ciudad de La Laguna Airport

Tenerife North–Ciudad de La Laguna Airport , formerly Los Rodeos Airport, is the smaller of the two international airports on the island of Tenerife, Spain. It is located in San Cristóbal de La Laguna, by road from Santa Cruz and at an elevation of . It handled 3,717,944 passengers in 2012. Combined with Tenerife South Airport, the island gathers the highest passenger movement of all the Canary Islands, with 12,248,673 passengers, surpassing Gran Canaria Airport. Today TFN is an inter-island hub connecting all seven of the main Canary Islands with connections to the Iberian Peninsula and Europe.
In 1977, the airport was the infamous site of the deadliest accident in aviation history, when two Boeing 747s collided on the runway in heavy fog conditions, causing the deaths of 583 passengers and crew.
History
Early years
Many years before the airport had even been built, the field at Los Rodeos was hastily prepared to accommodate the first (though unofficial) flight into Tenerife operated by an Arado V I (D-1594) aircraft operating from Berlin on behalf of Deutsche Luft Hansa.
In May 1930, the Compañía de Líneas Aéreas Subvencionadas S.A. (C.L.A.S.S.A.) established the first air link between the Spanish mainland and the Canary Islands using a Ford 4-AT Trimotor (M-CKKA), which took off from Getafe, Madrid to the Los Rodeos field via Casablanca, Cape Juby and Gando in Gran Canaria.
After the final location of the airport had been decided, funds were gathered between 1935 and 1939 to build a small hangar and begin expanding the airstrip which would become Los Rodeos.
Operations into Los Rodeos recommenced on 23 January 1941 with a De Havilland DH89A Dragon Rapide operating an Iberia flight from Gando in Gran Canaria. By 1946, more hangars, a passenger terminal and an paved runway had been built, and the airport was officially opened to all national and international traffic. The runway was stretched at various times during the 1940s and 1950s, reaching a length of in 1953, by which time the airport was also equipped with runway edge lighting and an air-ground radio, enabling night operations.
Development since the 1960s
By 1964, runway 12/30 had been stretched to to accommodate the DC-8, new navigation aids were installed, and the apron was expanded to provide more parking spaces for aircraft. In 1971, with the prospect of the Boeing 747 flying into the airport, the runway was reinforced and an ILS (Instrument Landing System) was installed.
On December 3, 1972, Spantax Flight 275 crashed during take-off, killing everyone on board.
A new airport, Tenerife South Airport, was inaugurated on 6 November 1978. It was built because Tenerife North is very often covered with thick fog, and this was impacting safety, as shown by the Tenerife airport disaster, in which visibility was a contributing factor.
On 25 April 1980, Dan-Air Flight 1008 Boeing 727 crashed near the airport, killing all 146 on board, in a controlled flight into terrain accident.
A new terminal was opened at Tenerife North Airport in 2002, comprising car park, motorway access ramps, and four-story terminal building, with 12 gates, reopening the airport to international traffic. Until this point, the airport had been closed to international flights ever since Tenerife South had opened in 1978. In February 2003, Santa Bárbara Airlines transferred its Caracas service from Reina Sofía Airport to Tenerife North. An inter-island domestic area was opened in 2005.
In June 2009, Air Europa introduced a route to Miami using Airbus A330s. The service was supposed to end in October 2009, but high demand convinced the airline to shift the end date to January 2010. Air Europa then decided to continue flying to Miami on a seasonal basis. The flight resumed in June 2010; however, the carrier discontinued it four months later. Amid economic problems in Venezuela, SBA Airlines, formerly known as Santa Bárbara Airlines, terminated its flights to Caracas in February 2014. In June 2018, Plus Ultra Líneas Aéreas began flying the same route with Airbus A340s.
Airlines and destinations
The following airlines operate regular scheduled and charter flights to and from Tenerife North:
Statistics
Accidents and incidents
Tenerife airport disaster
On 27 March 1977, Tenerife North Airport (then Tenerife Los Rodeos) was the scene of the deadliest accident in aviation history, which claimed the lives of 583 people. While attempting to take off, KLM Flight 4805, a Boeing 747-206B, collided with Pan Am Flight 1736, a Boeing 747-121, which was taxiing along the runway. All 248 passengers and crew on the KLM flight were killed, along with 335 occupants of the Pan Am flight; however, 61 of the passengers and crew on board the Pan Am survived. Neither of the two airliners was originally scheduled to land on Tenerife, as both flights were bound for Gran Canaria Airport but had been diverted to Los Rodeos as a result of a terrorist bombing at Gran Canaria.
Other incidents
Ground transport
Bus routes 20, 30, 103 and 343 serve the airport.
References
External links
Official website
Airlines Pilot Association (ALPA) Article on 1977 KLM-PanAm disaster
Airports in the Canary Islands
Buildings and structures in Tenerife
Transport in Tenerife
Airports established in 1930