What changes for travellers in the south of the islands?

Canary Islands airports are busier this bridge weekend than a year ago. Aena sources told Europa Press there will be 5,640 flights from Friday 30 October to Monday 2 November, 420 more.

Tenerife Sur has 1,160 operations, behind Gran Canaria with 1,678, RTVC reports. Anyone flying to or from southern Tenerife will find the second-busiest airport on the islands over these four days.

The busiest day is Saturday 31 October, with 1,593 flights across the islands. Friday 30 October follows with 1,401, while the report gave no daily figures for Sunday 1 November or Monday 2 November.

Anyone flying on Sunday or Monday should get to the airport early and check their flight status with the airline. The report gave no recommended arrival time and no expected waiting times.

In its notices on bridge weekends, Aena generally advises checking with the airline beforehand, as schedules can change. That includes residents flying between the islands, because the count covers all Canary Islands airports.

Which airports are under the most pressure?

Gran Canaria leads with 1,678 operations, followed by Tenerife Sur with 1,160 and Tenerife Norte with 938, RTVC says, citing Aena. Together these three handle 3,776 flights, which works out at two in every three flights of the weekend.

At the other end are El Hierro with an expected 76 flights and La Gomera with 32. That makes La Gomera the quietest airport in the Canary Islands over these four days.

The RTVC text gave no individual figures for Lanzarote, Fuerteventura and La Palma. Subtracting the five airports named from the 5,640 flights leaves 1,756 flights for those three islands.

According to RTVC, 2,611 of the 5,640 flights are international, about 46%. For holidaymakers, that means almost every second flight links the Canary Islands with another country.

How busy is this compared with other bridge days?

At 1,593 flights, Saturday 31 October tops Pilar Saturday, 10 October 2026, when RTVC reported 1,344 flights. Over the four days, the average works out at 1,410 flights a day.

On Pilar Monday, 12 October 2026, RTVC counted 1,227 flights, 35 or 3% fewer than on the same day in 2025. Gran Canaria had 379 flights then, Tenerife Norte 246 and Tenerife Sur 180.

There is no separate figure for Monday 2 November. The forecast does not say whether the return day will be as busy as Pilar Monday or busier.

Passenger numbers, by contrast, are barely growing. In September 2026 Aena counted 4,204,223 passengers, 0.9% fewer than in September 2025, and 40.5 million from January to September, 0.3% fewer than a year earlier.

In September Tenerife Sur had 954,710 passengers, 4.2% below the previous year, while Gran Canaria, with 1.19 million, was 0.7% above. Flights and passengers are different measures, so one cannot be read directly from the other.

How is tourism in the Canary Islands doing overall?

The employers’ association Excelcan expects just over 18 million tourists in 2026, about 2% fewer than in 2025, RTVC reported on 15 September 2026. The association speaks of a soft landing.

The Canary Islands statistics institute ISTAC and Spain’s national statistics institute INE counted 1.5 million tourists in July 2026, 2.7% more than in July 2025. From April to June 2026, however, international arrivals fell by 3.35%, according to Excelcan.

Excelcan named one concern: the conflict over Iran. It could hit jet fuel prices and flight routes.

What is still unclear and what comes next?

We could not establish whether Monday 2 November is a public holiday in the Canary Islands. One German-language source says the Monday holiday in 2026 applies in only about half of Spain, but it does not say whether the Canary Islands are among them.

The RTVC report contains nothing on strikes, weather or closures. Our research found nothing either, though it did not search for them specifically.

Based on earlier dates, Aena publishes its monthly passenger figures around the 12th to 15th of the following month. The October figures should therefore appear in mid-November, but that is an estimate based on older dates.