Tenerife North Airport

When you think of Tenerife, you think of sun, beaches and leisure airlines in the south. The airport in the north is the counterpart: a single runway on a plateau above La Laguna, clouds that often hang lower than the approaches, and an apron full of turboprops. Los Rodeos, as the airport is still mostly called, is also one of the most historic places in civil aviation. Two jumbo jets collided here in 1977 – an accident that still resonates today whenever pilots and controllers talk to each other. For spotters, TFN today is above all one thing: the home turf of Binter Canarias and the best place on the island to see island hoppers in quick succession.

An airport on a plateau

The airport lies in the municipality of San Cristóbal de La Laguna, about eleven kilometers from the island capital Santa Cruz de Tenerife. In the early years of aviation, the Los Rodeos plateau was one of the few flat areas in the mountainous north of the island. Its drawback is the elevation: at 633 meters above sea level, the runway lies exactly in the zone where the humid trade wind clouds bank up on Tenerife’s northern flank. Fog, low clouds and drizzle can roll in within minutes – even when the sun is blazing on the beach in the south.

Like all major Spanish commercial airports, TFN is operated by Aena. Officially, the airport is called Aeropuerto de Tenerife Norte-Ciudad de La Laguna today; on display boards and in schedules, it is usually simply Tenerife Norte. The layout is easy to grasp: one runway, a parallel taxiway, an apron and a single passenger terminal.

From a natural strip to an island airport

The airport’s history begins in 1929 with a landing on a simple natural strip. A year later, a royal decree declared Los Rodeos a national airport. The airport was officially opened for national and international traffic on May 3, 1946.

In the following decades, the runway grew with the aircraft. In 1953 it reached 2,400 meters and was equipped for night operations; in 1964 came the extension to 3,000 meters so the Douglas DC-8 could land. In the early 1970s, the runway was reinforced and an instrument landing system installed – the Boeing 747 and rapidly growing package tourism were expected. How an ILS approach works is explained in the article on the ILS approach.

The location, however, remained the fundamental problem. As early as 1972, a Convair 990 of the charter airline Spantax crashed shortly after takeoff; all 155 people on board died. Five years later came the disaster that made the name Los Rodeos known worldwide.

March 27, 1977: the collision in fog

On the afternoon of March 27, 1977, a bomb planted by a Canary Islands independence movement exploded in the terminal of Gran Canaria Airport. Gran Canaria was closed, and numerous flights – including two Boeing 747s – diverted to Los Rodeos. The small airport was not designed for this rush. Parked aircraft blocked the taxiway, so departing aircraft had to taxi to the takeoff position along the runway itself.

Involved were the KLM 747 “Rijn” with the registration PH-BUF, a Boeing 747-200, and the Pan Am 747 “Clipper Victor” (N736PA), a Boeing 747-100. As both taxied along the runway, dense fog rolled in. The tower had no ground radar and could see neither aircraft. The KLM aircraft turned at the end of the runway and began its takeoff roll while the Pan Am aircraft was still on the runway, having missed its designated exit.

Several radio misunderstandings came together. The KLM crew understood a route clearance containing the word “takeoff” as a takeoff clearance; their own non-standard call left open whether they were already rolling. Simultaneous transmissions from the tower and Pan Am overlapped, so the crucial warning did not reach the KLM cockpit. Moments later, the departing jumbo slammed into the Pan Am aircraft. All 248 people on board the KLM aircraft died, and of the 396 occupants of the Pan Am aircraft, 61 survived. With 583 dead, it is still the worst accident in aviation history.

The investigations in Spain and the Netherlands came to different weightings: the Spanish side saw the main cause in the takeoff without clearance, the Dutch side stressed the mutual radio misunderstandings. KLM eventually accepted responsibility and compensated the bereaved. Spain retrofitted the airport with ground radar. The full story with all the background is told in the article on the Tenerife air disaster of 1977; for the history of the airlines involved, take a look at the pages on KLM and Pan Am.

Since 2007, an international memorial on the hill Mesa Mota near La Laguna commemorates the victims. It lies above the plateau and is a quiet place – if you are spotting at Los Rodeos anyway, the detour is worth considering.

Tenerife South takes over holiday traffic

Even before 1977, it was clear that Los Rodeos was reaching its limits. On November 6, 1978, the new Tenerife South airport went into operation in the dry, sunny south of the island. It took over international traffic, and Los Rodeos became Tenerife North and from then on mainly handled inter-island flights and connections to the mainland.

The following years were not entirely free of accidents either. On April 25, 1980, a Boeing 727-100 of the British Dan-Air hit the La Esperanza mountain southwest of the airport on approach; all 146 occupants died. The accident underscored how demanding the terrain around the airport is.

In the early 2000s, TFN got a new multi-story terminal, with which international flights also returned. In 2005, a separate area for inter-island flights was added, and in the following years the apron was expanded with positions for widebody aircraft.

Binter: the top dog

When you look at the apron at Los Rodeos, you mainly see one color: that of Binter Canarias. The Canary Islands regional airline has its two hubs on Gran Canaria and at Tenerife North and connects every island with an airport from here – including the small airfields on La Palma, La Gomera and El Hierro. Inter-island flights make up a large share of the airport’s movements.

The backbone of the fleet is the ATR 72-600 from the manufacturer ATR: a high-wing aircraft with two propellers that flies the short island routes at a dense rhythm. For longer routes – to the mainland, Madeira, the Azores or Africa – Binter uses the Embraer E195-E2, which the airline put into scheduled service in late 2019 as the first in Europe. Besides Binter, a second island carrier with turboprops, Canaryfly, is operating.

Who else lands at Los Rodeos

The second large group is the Spanish network and low-cost airlines on the mainland routes. Madrid is the most important destination, joined by cities such as Barcelona, Seville, Bilbao, Málaga and Valencia. Flying here are Iberia and Iberia Express from the International Airlines Group, Air Europa, Vueling and Air Nostrum. On these routes, the A320 family dominates, such as the A320neo, plus Boeing 737s and regional jets.

Widebody aircraft show up occasionally too. Plus Ultra serves the route to Caracas, and according to spotter guides, Iberia and Air Europa now and then send widebody jets such as an Airbus A330 or a Boeing 787 to the island. How to tell the two apart is shown in the articles A330 or A340? and A350 or Boeing 787?. Cargo flights, such as with ATR 72s and Boeing 757s from Swiftair, as well as aircraft from the military, coast guard and ambulance services are also among the highlights.

International scheduled flights are more the exception. Binter flies to Madeira and seasonally to the Azores; for winter 2026/27, according to available schedule data, TUIfly flights to Düsseldorf, Frankfurt and Hannover are in the program, and Wizz Air has announced a domestic route to Santiago de Compostela from February 2027. Schedules change quickly – check the current offering before your visit.

One runway, two directions

The runway runs from northwest to southeast. The end of 30 lies in the southeast toward La Laguna, the end of 12 in the northwest. When landing on 30, aircraft come in from the direction of La Laguna and touch down at the southeast end; with runway direction 12, they come from the northwest side. The wind decides which direction applies – and in Los Rodeos it can shift several times a day.

For your planning, this means: don’t just look at the runway direction once in the morning, but keep an eye on it throughout the day. A flight tracker shows you in real time which direction approaches are coming from. The basics are in the article Understanding the runway direction in use at an airport.

Spotting at Los Rodeos

The classic locations lie mostly on the side of the airport opposite the terminal and at the two runway ends. Spotter guides describe several places where you stand with a view of the runway and taxiway – partly right next to a bar or restaurant, which is almost a tradition at Los Rodeos.

• At the end of 30: near the threshold in the southeast, you see approaches and departures with runway direction 30 as well as movements on the parallel taxiway. A medium focal length is often enough here. According to spotter guides, you can reach the area on foot from La Laguna in about 20 to 25 minutes.
• On the south side: along the paths south of the runway, you have a clear view of takeoffs in both directions as soon as the aircraft fly over the fence. A longer telephoto is worthwhile here.
• At the end of 12: in the northwest, you photograph approaches and departures with runway direction 12, and partly aircraft lining up as well.
• Near the terminal: from paths a few minutes’ walk from the terminal, you look onto the apron and onto movements of 12. The light suits summer mornings better here, and you need a long telephoto.

Expect the situation to change. At some well-known spots, fences were raised or gaps closed in recent years, so touchdown shots hardly work there anymore. Current experiences of other spotters are therefore worth their weight in gold – in Planetrack’s spot map, you find directions, best light, ratings and community photos for the locations.

Light, weather and season

Because of the runway’s orientation, according to spotter guides the light is better overall in the winter half of the year; in summer, the best light shifts into the afternoon at many locations. From spring to fall, heat haze over the asphalt is added at some locations, which blurs shots at longer distances. Then stay closer to the runway ends or use the morning hours.

The biggest question mark remains the weather. The north side of Tenerife is significantly more humid than the south, and the plateau often lies right in the cloud layer. A look at webcams, weather reports and satellite images in the morning can save you a lost day when in doubt – in an emergency, Tenerife South remains as a fallback. The article Plane spotting in bad weather shows how to come away with pictures from gray days anyway, and the article on the sun position at your photo spot explains how to plan the light in advance.

Tenerife North compared with the Canary Islands

In the Canary Islands, the airports divide up the tasks quite clearly. Gran Canaria is the second Binter hub and also a large leisure airport. Lanzarote and Fuerteventura live almost entirely off holiday traffic – at the beach of Playa Honda on Lanzarote, you stand directly under the approach, as the spot guide to Playa Honda shows. Tenerife North is the only one of the major airports where inter-island traffic and mainland flights shape the picture.

For a trip to the Canary Islands, it is therefore worth combining north and south: in the south, you collect the leisure airlines from half of Europe, in the north the Binter fleet and the Spanish airlines. The guide Plane spotting in the Canary Islands gives an overview of all the islands. If you want to place the two jumbos of 1977 by type, the article Boeing 747-100 to 747-8 covers the differences between the variants. The most important link to the mainland is Madrid-Barajas.

Conclusion

Tenerife North is not an airport for the big livery hunt but one with character. A single runway on a cloud-shrouded plateau, a history that changed aviation worldwide, and an everyday life shaped by Binter and the island hoppers. Anyone who likes turboprops or wants to have the Spanish airlines complete in their logbook gets their money’s worth here.

Weather, wind and light are decisive. When the clouds break open over La Laguna and the runway direction suits your location, Los Rodeos is one of the most atmospheric spots in the Canary Islands.