What changes for visitors and residents on Tenerife?

No cancelled flight has been named for Tenerife so far. Neither Aena nor the airlines involved mentioned the Canary Islands or the airline Binter.

Travellers flying to or from the US via Madrid or Barcelona are the most likely to be hit. How many of them start or end their journey on Tenerife has not been published.

If you live in or are holidaying in the southern resorts with a US flight booked, check its status now. Aena asks passengers to ask the airline directly.

Tenerife Sur does not appear in the reports on the US disruption. It is the larger of the island’s two airports, with 13,969,678 passengers in 2025, according to Aena.

Which flights were cancelled in Madrid and Barcelona?

At Madrid-Barajas, reports name a Delta flight to Atlanta, scheduled for 12:20, and its return leg. An Iberia arrival from Chicago at 08:45 and American Airlines flight 126 from Chicago were also hit.

Aena confirmed that a United arrival from Chicago, scheduled for 12:15, was cancelled at Barcelona-El Prat. United’s matching departure was cancelled too.

The report listed 58 connections between Madrid, Barcelona and the US for Saturday. Sixteen had already departed and six were cancelled, with delays expected on the rest in both directions.

Iberia said it had operated all planned departures and arrivals. The exception is flight IBE 0342 from Chicago to Madrid, which the airline plans to run later on Saturday.

What caused the chaos in the US?

A failure of the US air traffic control telecommunications systems on the afternoon of Friday 13 November 2026 set it off. According to Spanish reports, it forced the US to suspend more than 8,200 flights, 31% of the schedule.

We could not confirm these figures independently. No statement from the US aviation authority, the FAA, was available.

The stoppage lasted about four hours, according to the reports. The sources do not say whether all departures were halted or only some.

Do not mix this up with the outage of 21 September 2026. According to AirHelp, a construction crew knocked out a fibre-optic line, and about 7,000 US flights were cancelled or delayed.

What rights do affected passengers have?

EU Regulation 261/2004 gives passengers four rights when a flight is cancelled: information, care, a refund or alternative transport, and compensation. The Spanish administration says so on its portal for European rights.

Any flight from Madrid or Barcelona falls under the regulation, whatever the airline. A flight from the US to Spain is covered only if the airline is from the EU.

Nobody can say yet whether compensation is due, because air traffic control faults can count as circumstances beyond the airline’s control. AirHelp thinks this unlikely for the September incident, but still sees rebooking or a refund, and care, as the airline’s duty.

In Spain, you can take a dispute with an airline to the state aviation authority AESA. For flights from 2 June 2023 this route is free, and the decision binds the airline.

AESA will not accept a claim from anyone who has gone to court first. Keep your ticket and boarding pass, though the source confirms no deadlines.

What is still open and what happens next?

The final number of cancellations is unclear. Other reports from the same day spoke of four flights instead of six and named only one Delta flight, one Iberia arrival and the United pair.

Whether American flight 126 and the Delta return were cancelled is also open. Air Europa is said to have cancelled no flight in those reports, a claim that does not fit the Iberia details.

Nobody has said whether travellers from the Canary Islands were affected. Aena and the airlines gave no further dates, and no FAA investigation has been announced.

Storm “Charles” of 11 November has nothing to do with the US outage. At 13:00 that day Aena counted 18 cancellations and ten diversions in the Canary Islands.

Tenerife Sur had no cancellation. Tenerife Norte had two cancellations and six diversions.