Catania Airport

The airport of Catania-Fontanarossa “Vincenzo Bellini” (IATA: CTA, ICAO: LICC) is the main air hub of Southern Italy, third in Italy (as of 2021) for passenger traffic and second in Italy for domestic traffic. In addition, the Catania-Rome route is the busiest nationally and the fourth in Europe..

On May 5, 2007, in the presence of the then Minister of Transport Alessandro Bianchi, was inaugurated the new terminal named after Vincenzo Bellini, in which to accommodate, with high standards of service quality, the increase in air traffic expected for the Etna airport. The old “Filippo Eredia” terminal remained in operation until the evening of May 7, 2007, coinciding with the opening to the public of the new terminal (at dawn on May 8, 2007) named Terminal A. In addition, on July 14, 2018, the new Terminal C, reserved for EasyJet flights to destinations in the Schengen area, was also opened to the public

General information

It is the main airport in Southern Italy and in 2019 exceeded the quota of 10 million annual passengers, thus becoming the fifth in Italy and the first in Southern Italy. The traffic of the airport remains in continuous expansion, with numerous scheduled and charter flights favored by the geographical location and road connections.

Given the inadequacy of the previous facility, designed in the seventies to accommodate a maximum traffic of one million passengers per year, in recent years a larger terminal has been built nearby. In addition, the aircraft parking area was enlarged and a new taxiway was built that connects the aircraft parking apron to runway 08. Work on the new facility and related works was completed on December 21, 2006, almost two years later than originally planned (winter 2005) and it was opened to the public on May 8, 2007. In addition, Catania airport Terminal C was also opened to the public in 2018.

The airport is, at times, subject to operational limitations or temporary closures due to the volcanic ash emitted during the eruptions of Mount Etna that can invade the airspace and runways forcing, for safety reasons, to divert flights to other airports in the region. To manage this phenomenon, in January 2010 the Civil Protection Department has installed in the air-side of the airport an X-band radar in dual polarization to monitor the volcanic ash clouds emitted by Etna, in support of the authorities responsible for the regulation and control of air traffic.