Flights - How to Get to Tenerife

by Nicola Quinn
Flights
'Girl at the airport window looking to the Atlantic ocean. Tenerife, Canaries' - Tenerife
'Girl at the airport window looking to the Atlantic ocean. Tenerife, Canaries' Alexander Chaikin / Shutterstock

Tenerife features two airports – one in the north of the island and one in the south. The airport located in the north of the island is known as Los Rodeos and is situated in La Laguna. Due to its small size, only a handful of airlines operate from here and fly to a limited number of destinations, including mainland Spain, the other Canary Islands, Morocco and France, with plans to fly to Germany soon.

The airport in the south of the island is much larger and is where most tourists land when visiting the island. Located inland in between El Medano and Los Abrigos, Reina Sofia airport caters for over 40 different airlines which fly to destinations all over the world.

You can travel to Tenerife from almost every European airport, including – but not limited to – those in the UK, France, Germany, Spain, Portugal, the Canary Islands, the Balearics, the Netherlands, Russia, Italy, Norway, Sweden, Prague, Switzerland and Hungary.

In 2012, Tenerife South Airport the second busiest airport in the Canary Islands, handling around 8.5 million passengers. It was also the seventh busiest airport in Spain after Malaga in Andalusia which came fourth, Gran Canaria in the Canary Islands which came fifth, Alicante which came sixth and Ibiza in Balearic Islands which came eighth. The second airport in Tenerife, Los Rodeos, served 3.7 million passengers in 2012 and ranked 14th place in Spain and 98th in the whole of Europe.

There is also a great number of low-cost airlines that fly to Tenerife, such as EasyJet, Jet2, Monarch and Ryanair which regularly offer one-way flights to Tenerife for less than €100 from a variety of European destinations.

Prices vary greatly between airlines, so if you’re looking for the cheapest flight possible, take a look at a few different websites to see which airlines offer the best deals for your chosen dates. If you're not sure where to begin, check out a flight search engine that scans through loads of airline websites for you.

Despite being located just off the western coast of Africa, a flight from anywhere in Europe to Tenerife is a short-haul flight and only takes a few hours to complete. If you’re planning on flying to Tenerife soon, here is a rough guide to tell you how long it will take:

Madrid, Spain – Tenerife: 2 hours 30 mins

Paris, France – Tenerife: 3 hours 45 mins

London, UK – Tenerife: 4 hours

Dublin, Ireland – Tenerife: 4 hours 30 mins

Amsterdam, Netherlands – Tenerife: 4 hours 40 mins

Berlin, Germany – Tenerife: 5 hours