Tenerife North–Ciudad de La Laguna Airport , formerly Los Rodeos Airport, is the smaller of the two

international airport An international airport is an airport with customs and border control facilities enabling passengers to travel between countries. International airports are usually larger than domestic airports, and feature longer runways and have faciliti ...

s on the island of

Tenerife Tenerife ( ; ; formerly spelled ''Teneriffe'') is the largest and most populous island of the Canary Islands, an Autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community of Spain. With a land area of and a population of 965,575 inhabitants as of A ...

Spain Spain, or the Kingdom of Spain, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe with territories in North Africa. Featuring the Punta de Tarifa, southernmost point of continental Europe, it is the largest country in Southern Eur ...

. It is located in

San Cristóbal de La Laguna San Cristóbal de La Laguna (commonly known as La Laguna, ) is a city and municipality in the northern part of the island of Tenerife in the Province of Santa Cruz de Tenerife, on the Canary Islands, Spain. The former capital of the Canary Islan ...

, by road from Santa Cruz and at an elevation of . It handled 6,120,550 passengers in 2023. Combined with

Tenerife South Airport Tenerife South Airport () , also known as Tenerife South–Reina Sofía Airport, is the larger of the two international airports located on the island of Tenerife (the other being Tenerife North Airport) and the second busiest in the Canary ...

, the island gathers the highest passenger movement of all the

Canary Islands The Canary Islands (; ) or Canaries are an archipelago in the Atlantic Ocean and the southernmost Autonomous communities of Spain, Autonomous Community of Spain. They are located in the northwest of Africa, with the closest point to the cont ...

, with 18,457,794 passengers, surpassing

Gran Canaria Airport Gran Canaria Airport () is a passenger and freight airport on the island of Gran Canaria. It is an important airport within the Spanish air transport network (owned and managed by a public enterprise, AENA), as it holds the sixth position in te ...

. Today TFN is an inter-island hub connecting all seven of the main Canary Islands with connections to the

Iberian Peninsula The Iberian Peninsula ( ), also known as Iberia, is a peninsula in south-western Europe. Mostly separated from the rest of the European landmass by the Pyrenees, it includes the territories of peninsular Spain and Continental Portugal, comprisin ...

and

Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...

. In 1977, the airport was the infamous site of the deadliest accident in aviation history, when two

Boeing 747 The Boeing 747 is a long-range wide-body aircraft, wide-body airliner designed and manufactured by Boeing Commercial Airplanes in the United States between 1968 and 2023. After the introduction of the Boeing 707, 707 in October 1958, Pan Am ...

s 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 Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...

on behalf of

Deutsche Luft Hansa ''Deutsche Luft Hansa A.G.'' (from 1933 styled as ''Deutsche Lufthansa'' and also known as ''Luft Hansa'', ''Lufthansa'', or DLH) was a German airline. It served as flag carrier of the country during the later years of the Weimar Republic and t ...

. 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 Getafe () is a municipalities in Spain, municipality and a city in Spain belonging to the Community of Madrid. , it has a population of 180,747, the region's sixth most populated municipality. Getafe is located 13 km south of Madrid's city c ...

to the Los Rodeos field via

Casablanca Casablanca (, ) is the largest city in Morocco and the country's economic and business centre. Located on the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic coast of the Chaouia (Morocco), Chaouia plain in the central-western part of Morocco, the city has a populatio ...

Cape Juby Cape Juby (, trans. ''Raʾs Juby'', ) is a cape on the coast of southern Morocco, near the border with Western Sahara, directly east of the Canary Islands. Its surrounding area, including the cities of Tarfaya and Tan-Tan, is called the C ...

and Gando in

Gran Canaria Gran Canaria (, ; ), also Grand Canary Island, is the third-largest and second-most-populous island of the Canary Islands, a Spain, Spanish archipelago off the Atlantic coast of Northwest Africa. the island had a population of that constitut ...

. 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 The Iberian Peninsula ( ), also known as Iberia, is a peninsula in south-western Europe. Mostly separated from the rest of the European landmass by the Pyrenees, it includes the territories of peninsular Spain and Continental Portugal, compri ...

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 The Douglas DC-8 (sometimes McDonnell Douglas DC-8) is an early long-range narrow-body jetliner designed and produced by the American Douglas Aircraft Company. Work began in 1952 towards the United States Air Force's (USAF) requirement for a j ...

, new navigation aids were installed, and the apron was expanded to provide more parking spaces for aircraft. In 1971, with the prospect of the

flying into the airport, the runway was reinforced and an ILS (Instrument Landing System) was installed. On December 3, 1972,

Spantax Flight 275 On December 3, 1972, a Convair CV-990 Coronado charter flight operated by Spantax from Tenerife to Munich with 148 passengers and 7 crew crashed while taking off from Tenerife-Norte Los Rodeos Airport in Tenerife, killing all 155 passengers and cr ...

crashed during take-off, killing everyone on board. A new 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 The Tenerife airport disaster occurred on 27 March 1977, when two Boeing 747 passenger jets collided on the runway at Tenerife North–Ciudad de La Laguna Airport, Los Rodeos Airport (now Tenerife North–Ciudad de La Laguna Airport) on the Spa ...

, in which visibility was a contributing factor. On 25 April 1980,

Dan-Air Flight 1008 Dan-Air Flight 1008 was a fatal accident involving a Boeing 727-46 jet aircraft operated by Dan Air Services Limited on an unscheduled international passenger service from Manchester to Tenerife. The accident occurred on 25 April 1980 in a f ...

Boeing 727 The Boeing 727 is an American Narrow-body aircraft, narrow-body airliner that was developed and produced by Boeing Commercial Airplanes. After the heavier Boeing 707, 707 quad-jet was introduced in 1958, Boeing addressed the demand for shorter ...

crashed near the airport, killing all 146 on board, in a

controlled flight into terrain In aviation, a controlled flight into terrain (CFIT; usually ) is an aviation accidents and incidents, accident in which an airworthy aircraft, fully under pilot control, is unintentionally flown into the ground, a body of water or other obstac ...

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 Air Europa Líneas Aéreas, S.A.U., branded as Air Europa, is the third-largest Spain, Spanish airline after Iberia (airline), Iberia and Vueling. The airline is headquartered in Llucmajor, Mallorca, Spain; it has its main hub at Adolfo Suárez M ...

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 Plus Ultra Líneas Aéreas S.A. is a Spanish long-haul airline based at Adolfo Suárez Madrid–Barajas Airport. History Plus Ultra was founded in 2011 by the former director of now-defunct Air Madrid, Julio Miguel Martínez Sola. At Tenerife 2022 426

Busiest routes

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 KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, or simply KLM (an abbreviation for their official name Koninklijke Luchtvaart Maatschappij N.V. , ),

Flight 4805, a Boeing 747-206B, collided with

Pan Am Pan American World Airways, originally founded as Pan American Airways and more commonly known as Pan Am, was an airline that was the principal and largest international air carrier and unofficial overseas flag carrier of the United States for ...

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

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

{{DEFAULTSORT:Tenerife North-Ciudad de La Laguna Airport Airports in the Canary Islands Buildings and structures in Tenerife Transport in Tenerife Airports established in 1930