Italy: As Mount Etna continued to erupt, operations at Catania airport in Sicily remained suspended on Friday (August 14), with flights expected to be cancelled or rerouted until early Saturday (August 15).
All arrivals at the island hub, Italy's fifth-busiest airport by passenger traffic, will be suspended through 2 a.m. local time (0000 GMT) on Saturday due to ongoing volcanic activity, airport operator SAC said in a statement.
Although passengers were advised to check the status of their flights with their airlines before travelling to the airport, some only found out about the situation when they entered the terminal.
"We arrived at the airport this morning and saw that everything had been cancelled," said Matteo Greco, a passenger travelling to Barcelona, who decided to play cards with his travelling companion while waiting for updates on his journey.
The prolonged restrictions come at the height of the summer holiday season, affecting thousands of passengers, and have placed additional pressure on Sicily's other airports.
"We were due to leave on Wednesday, but our flight was cancelled; then they rescheduled it for Friday. Now this one has been cancelled too," said Antonella Thirande Warnakulasuriya Costa, from the Sicilian city of Messina, who is travelling to Sri Lanka via Dubai.
Her flight is now expected to depart from Palermo. "Though we have to wait until tonight at 10 p.m., so we are a bit stuck here at the airport," she added.
Mount Etna, Europe's highest and most active volcano, frequently disrupts operations at Catania airport, whose operator launched the sale of a stake of at least 51per cent in May.