Tenerife North Airport

Infobox Airport
name = Tenerife North Airport
nativename = Aeropuerto de Tenerife Norte
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IATA = TFN
ICAO = GCXO
type = Public
owner =
operator = Aena
city-served =
location = Santa Cruz de Tenerife
elevation-f = 2002
elevation-m = 610
coordinates = Coord|28|28|53.94|N|16|20|18.4|W|type:airport|display=inline,title
website =
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metric-rwy =
r1-number = 12/30
r1-length-f = 11,155
r1-length-m = 3,400
r1-surface = Asphalt
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Tenerife North Airport Airport codes|TFN|GCXO is located 11 km by road from Santa Cruz and is one of two international airports on the island. TFN is an inter-island hub, connecting all seven Canary Islands, and offers connections to the Spanish Peninsula, Europe, and South America

The route between Tenerife North and Gran Canaria is the busiest with an average of 40 flights per day.

Buildings

A new terminal was inaugurated in 2002, comprising car park, motorway access ramps, and four-story terminal building, with 12 gates. The airport regained its international status when flights to Caracas began.An inter-island domestic area was opened in 2005.

Capacity

In 2004 the airport handled 3.3 million passengers (+15%). In 2005 that number rose to 3.8 million (+11%), and in 2006 it was over 4 million (+7%). Aircraft movements in the same period rose from 56,000 to 65,000. The busiest air route from the airport in terms of passengers is the one to Madrid Airport, at over one million passengers a year.

History

In the winter of 1929, 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 VI (D-1594) aircraft operating from Berlin on behalf of Deutsche Lufthansa.

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 .

In July 1936 Francisco Franco flew from here after taking over the island to invade the mainland and start the Spanish civil war.Operations into Los Rodeos recommenced on 23rd of 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 800m 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 2,400m in 1953, by which time the airport was also equipped with runway edge lighting and an air-ground radio, enabling night operations.

By 1964, runway 12-30 had been stretched to 3,000m 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.

In the 1977 Tenerife disaster, a PanAm and a KLM Boeing 747 collided on the runway, killing 583 people, the highest number of fatalities (excluding ground fatalities) of any single accident in aviation history. In response, a new airport, Tenerife South Airport, was inaugurated on November 6, 1978. It is situated at sea level which averts the occurrence of fog, one of the reasons for the crash.

Airlines and destinations

*Aeroflot (Moscow-Sheremeteyevo, Madrid)
*airberlin (Düsseldorf)
*Air Europa (Barcelona, Bilbao, Madrid, Sevilla)
*Binter Canarias (Arrecife, El Hierro, Fuerteventura, La Gomera, La Palma, Las Palmas)
*Clickair (Barcelona)
*Finnair (Helsinki)
*Iberia (Madrid, Málaga, Sevilla)
**Iberia operated by Air Nostrum (Valencia)
*Islas Airways (Arrecife, Fuerteventura, La Palma, Las Palmas)
*Livingston Airlines (Milan-Malpensa)
*Santa Barbara Airlines (Caracas)
*Spanair (Barcelona, Madrid)
*Transavia.com (Amsterdam)
*TUIfly (Berlin-Tegel, Basle/Mulhouse, Düsseldorf, Stuttgart)
*Vueling (Madrid)

Accidents and incidents

External links

* [http://www.aena.es/csee/Satellite?pagename=subHome&Language=EN_GB&c=Page&SiteName=TFN&cid=1051252907682 Tenerife North Airport Official Website] - en icon
* [http://www.aena.es/csee/Satellite?cid=1051252907682&pagename=Estandar%2FPage%2FAeropuerto&SMO=-1&SiteName=TFN&c=Page&MO=0&lang=EN_GB Tenerife North Airport Official Website] - es icon
*WAD|GCXO
* [http://www.airliners.net/open.file/0824217/L/ Air View ]
* [http://www.airliners.net/open.file/0294146/L/ Airport Terminal]
* [http://www.airliners.net/open.file/0307791/L/ Airport Interior]
* [http://cf.alpa.org/internet/alp/2000/aug00p18.htm Airlines Pilot Association (ALPA) Article on 1977 KLM-PanAm disaster]