Chaos and delays in Canaries airports

The airports in the Canary Islands suffered a day of chaos yesterday 21st October 2010 when a third of the air traffic controllers refused to work due to lack of training on a new system that has been installed.

Out of the 745 flights due to take off or land across all the airports, 40% suffered delays of approximately 28 minutes (on average). Tenerife Sur acheived 42% punctuality and an average of 45 minute delay, while no flights from La Gomera suffered any type of delay. In Lanzarote 48% of flights left on time, 64% in Fuerteventura and 67% in Gran Canaria.

Some flights between the islands and the mainland suffered delays of up to 3 hours.

The airports started to regain normaility when AENA and the staff agreed that no air traffic controller would operate without the correct training.