The sequence is a classic. You peek your head out of the window to greet the familiar mist of Los Rodeos and, suddenly, the commander utters the most feared words by travellers arriving on the island: “We’re diverting to Tenerife South.” Your heart sinks for a moment.
After a long journey or a day’s work commuting to and from Gran Canaria, you had promised yourself to get home on time. But then, the Atlantic mist changes to a view filled with rocky terrain, greenhouses, and some urban areas. Sixty kilometres ahead and the inevitable question: What now?
To avoid this discomfort, a partnership has been announced this Saturday between Tenerife’s Cabildo, via Titsa, and the airline Binter, introducing an express land corridor that will transfer diverted passengers between the two airports, to try to alleviate, as much as possible (and an hour’s drive), the mismatch between the weather and our plans.
How it will work
The shuttle will be activated exclusively when Binter notifies Titsa of an operational incident. To board, one must show the boarding pass or a document confirming the traveller or airline worker is affected by the diversion.
Titsa will assign buses with between 45 and 50 seats, sufficient to accommodate the load of an ATR-72 or an Embraer E195-E2, the models that Binter uses in its Canary Island and mainland network.
The journey will connect both airports directly with a single stop at the Santa Cruz Interchange, allowing links to other urban and intercity lines.
Minimise the impact
The island’s Mobility Councillor, Eulalia García, emphasises that this initiative “demonstrates the coordinated response capacity between Canary entities” and reinforces Titsa’s role as a key operator “also in extraordinary situations”.
For Miguel Ángel Suárez, Binter’s commercial manager, the agreement “minimises the impact of diversions and maintains the level of service our customers expect”, as well as being “an example of the effectiveness of public-private collaboration”.
Pioneering agreement
Until now, each airline improvised solutions, mainly taxis or urgently hired buses, resulting in delays and little information for passengers.
With the new protocol, the island will have, for the first time, a predefined plan and a single operator for crisis mobility between its two aerodromes.
The Cabildo hopes that the “express corridor” will reduce travellers’ anxiety and expedite crew repositioning, a crucial detail for ensuring that air operations return to normalcy more quickly after each episode of bad weather or extraordinary circumstances that prevent landing at Los Rodeos (or at Reina Sofía, although that possibility is more remote).
