A fire that broke out on Sunday evening at the Vincenzo Bellini Catania Airport has shut down all activities within the Sicilian airport until 2pm on Wednesday 19^th July.

As a result, Air Malta has had to cancel a number of flights till then, including the flight KM643 originally scheduled for Sunday evening, 16^th July, the flights KM640, KM641, KM642, KM643, KM644 and KM645 scheduled over the dates 17^th and 18^th July, and the flights KM640 and KM641 on Wednesday 19^th July 2023.

All customers scheduled for any of the listed flights above may either claim a full refund, suspend their booking for an alternative date, or travel to and from Palermo Airport instead, the airline said.

In a later update, Air Malta informed passengers affected by the cancellation of flights that, following the expected release of its stranded aircraft from Catania Airport on Monday evening, it plans to operate two extra services to and from Palermo on Tuesday 18th July to further assist passengers who were affected. Air Malta stated that as a result of the closure of Catania Airport, it was constrained to cancel 16 flights affecting around 2,100 passengers.

The extra Palermo flights are: KM3640 departing Malta at 6.00am arriving in Palermo at 6.50 am. KM3642 departing Malta at 9.50pm arriving in Palermo at 10.40p. KM3641 departing Palermo at 7:35am arriving in Malta at 8:25am. KM3643 departing Palermo at 11:25pm arriving in Malta at 0.15am. Customers who hold existing tickets on cancelled Catania flights and who have not opted for a refund, may rebook onto these extra Palermo services at no additional charge by contacting the Air Malta Call Centre on 21662211.

The fire erupted within one of the airport's terminals buildings at approximately 11.30pm on Sunday evening before being contained by local firefighters around 90 minutes later.

Fortunately, no injuries were reported from this incident according to airport employees after being questioned by Reuters News Agency, though some people who stampeded out of the buildings at the time of the blaze suffered from shock or from minor smoke inhalation.

The origin of the fire currently remains unknown, and no links were provided on whether or not the current high temperatures in Sicily contributed to the blaze. Catania was one of numerous Italian cities that was issued with a hot weather red alert over the weekend as the region is embracing record-high temperatures.