Catania Airport Has Erected a Temporary Terminal to Alleviate The Load Created By The Closed Terminal A.

A fire on 17th July in the Terminal - A of Catania airport affected the operation drastically leading to terminal closure , flight cancellations and chaos. To lessen the load created by the terminal inoperation, a new temporary terminal has been erected , and is active at Catania airport since midnight on Thursday.

The temporary structure measures approximately 500 square meters and is equipped with X-ray equipment for checking hold luggage and a Security gate for passengers and hand luggage.

The new temporary terminal is essentially a large 500 square meter tensile structure with the essentials for check-in, baggage checks and waiting before departure.

After rigorous effeorts , the airport has been able to handle 10 flights per hour, 5 departing and 5 arriving. Sac , the company that manages the Catania airport, announced that with the operation of the new temporary terminal plans to increase them to 14 flights per hour, 7 departing and 7 arriving.

To sum up , the temporary facility will be able to handle 70 per cent of the traffic it used to handle before the fire. In this scenario, while 15 per cent have now been diverted to Comiso airport, near Ragusa ,rest of the flights are being managed by the airports of Palermo and Trapani. 

As mentioned before, much of the recovery work at Catania airport is still under progress. Terminal A , is still closed for maintenance work to bring the airport back to its full capacity. 

According to some sources , temporary structure will have to be maintained till  August 12th as a minimum, before the defunct terminal starts accepting the passengers.

At Catania airport, work is underway for the reopening of terminal A, made unusable following a fire two weeks ago. 

At the moment only terminal C is operational, which however has a reduced capacity and is always very crowded. In recent days, the queue for checks before flights have been moved outside the terminal for reasons of space, but the heat has made waiting very difficult for passengers. 

Even if the Sicilian Civil Protection has has made provisions outside Terminal C where passengers can rest under shade, reports of dehydration and fainting have been witnessed.

In the situation the airport is operating at the moment , waiting periods are being seen to be much longer than normal ,also the flights are getting delayed by up to several hours , and sometimes passengers wait overnight to board the plane.