Tenerife Airports, Highways and Telecommunications
Tenerife has two airports, both with national and international flights. "El Aeropuerto del Norte-Los Rodeos", located 12 km from the capital towards the north, has just inaugurated its new terminal. With a total surface area of 38,900 m2, it has capacity for over 4 million passengers per year and for all kinds of air traffic, both national and international. It has regular connections with numerous Spanish airports, all the airports of the Canary Islands and many international ones.
The other airport is "Al Aeropuerto de Tenerife Sur-Reina Sofía", it is also international, and is located 69 km by freeway from the capital towards the south. In the year 2001, more than 57,379 planes arrived there, carrying 8,777,876 passengers and 10,768,668 kilos of merchandise. It is planned to expand this airport with the construction of a second runway.
There are two ports of general interest on the Island and others of regional importance. Those of general interest are located at Santa Cruz de Tenerife and at Los Cristianos.
The Port of Santa Cruz de Tenerife has connections with the main world sea routes. Its floating surface area is 605 ha. It is divided into the commercial and the fishing parts. In the year 2002, it received 1,497,689 passengers, 4,782,295 tons of merchandise and over 360,590 TEUS. Cruise ship traffic is also very important. In its turn, the Port of Los Cristianos is the leading one in Spain in terms of passenger traffic.
Highways and Telecommunications
The network of highways is extensive, modern and comfortable. There are freeways running to the North and South of the Island, with a level of investment that is currently over 600 million euros. Tenerife has direct connections by satellite and fiber optic cable with the rest of the world. There is now total GSM system coverage and the implementation of UMITS and RDSI multimedia technology, having the main international telecommunications operators available.
The Canary Islands is one of the Spanish regions with the greatest degree of use of internet (the percentage of the population older than 16 using internet is 33,8%). Other data of interest in the year 2002:
Homes with computer: 48.8%
Homes with internet connection: 28.5%
Homes with cellphone: 78.2%
Homes with installed telephone: 83%