The planes were all grounded on Sunday at La Palma airport, on the Canary Islands, for the second day in a row, due to the ash cloud that escapes from the Cumbre Vieja volcano, which has erupted for a month.
Airlines have canceled all 38 flights scheduled for Sunday, most of them to and from other islands in the archipelago, an airport spokesperson said.
Only 4 of the 34 flights scheduled for Saturday went as planned.
The local airline, Binter, said in a statement that it would resume operations "as soon as possible and as soon as conditions allow safe flights".
Debido at the actual situación de la nube de ceniza, la operativa con #LaPalma continuará paralizada durante todo el día de hoy 17 de octubre.
Seguimos evaluando la situación para retomarla cuando se pueda operar con seguridad.
Consulta el estado de tu vuelo https://t.co/dTHNmulYVq pic.twitter.com/FjWsWjoC2D
- Binter (@BinterCanarias) October 17, 2021
No casualties, but more and more damage
This is not the first time that air connections with this island in the Atlantic archipelago of the Canaries - located opposite Morocco - have been affected since the volcano Cumbre Vieja (located 15 km west of the airport de La Palma) erupted on September 19, for the first time in 50 years.
The volcanic eruption on this small island of 85,000 inhabitants caused no casualties, but caused significant damage and caused the evacuation of 7,000 people, some of whom lost everything under the lava flows.
In total, 750 ha and more than 1,800 buildings were devastated by this volcanic eruption, which shows no sign of abating, according to new estimates from the European geospatial measurement system, Copernicus.
"We are at the mercy of the volcano"
"We are at the mercy of the volcano, only it can decide when it is all over," regional head of government Angel Victor Torres told reporters.
The Spanish central government and the regional government of the Canaries have disbursed 300 million euros for the reconstruction of the island, which depends mainly on tourism and banana plantations.
"We will be there until we have rebuilt 100% of what the volcano destroyed," Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said in an interview with private television station La Sexta on Thursday.
He pledged to "spend all the money necessary to rebuild this wonderful island".
The island of La Palma is currently experiencing its third eruption in a century, after those of the San Juan volcano in 1949 and the Teneguia in 1971, which caused less material damage but caused the death of three people.
