After one day of closure due to the volcanic ash of the Cumbre Vieja, the airport on the Canary Island of La Palma was reopened on Sunday. As the operating company Aena announced, it was possible to clean the airport, which was polluted by the ash cloud, in a nightly operation. The airlines did not resume their flights because of the persistently poor flight conditions.
“The airport of La Palma is back in operation”, Aena announced in the short message service Twitter. The airport operator nevertheless advised all travelers with destination La Palma to find out about the current situation from their airlines.
In fact, the airlines canceled their flights on Sunday. “We keep the temporary suspension of connections to La Palma until the conditions allow safe flights again,” announced the airline Binter on Twitter. Canaryfly also stated that the flight plan was “canceled until further notice”.
On Saturday, operations were stopped because the ash that had fallen from the eruption of the Cumbre Vieja volcano endangered air traffic. The closure led, among other things, to long queues of travelers in the port of the island’s capital Santa Cruz de la Palma, who now want to leave the island by ferry and mainly fly home via Tenerife.
The Cumbre Vieja erupted last Sunday for the first time in 50 years. According to the Canarian volcano research institute Involcan, the eruptions could continue for three to twelve weeks.
Thousands of people have had to leave their homes in the village of El Paso, hundreds of houses and large areas of land have already been destroyed by the lava. The regional authorities currently estimate the damage at well over 400 million euros.
The Canaries in the Atlantic Ocean, which also include the popular holiday islands of Gran Canaria, Tenerife and Lanzarote, are of volcanic origin. The Cumbre Vieja was considered a dormant volcano.