Tenerife North–Ciudad de La Laguna Airport , formerly Los Rodeos Airport, is the smaller of the two international airports on the island of Tenerife, Spain. It is located in San Cristóbal de La Laguna, by road from Santa Cruz and at an elevation of . It handled 3,717,944 passengers in 2012. Combined with Tenerife South Airport, the island gathers the highest passenger movement of all the Canary Islands, with 12,248,673 passengers, surpassing Gran Canaria Airport. Today TFN is an inter-island hub connecting all seven of the main Canary Islands with connections to the Iberian Peninsula and Europe. In 1977, the airport was the infamous site of the deadliest accident in aviation history, when two Boeing 747s collided on the runway in heavy fog conditions, causing the deaths of 583 passengers and crew. History Early years Many years before the airport had even been built, the field at Los Rodeos was hastily prepared to accommodate the first (though unofficial) flight into Tenerife operated by an Arado V I (D-1594) aircraft operating from Berlin on behalf of Deutsche Luft Hansa. In May 1930, the Compañía de Líneas Aéreas Subvencionadas S.A. (C.L.A.S.S.A.) established the first air link between the Spanish mainland and the Canary Islands using a Ford 4-AT Trimotor (M-CKKA), which took off from Getafe, Madrid to the Los Rodeos field via Casablanca, Cape Juby and Gando in Gran Canaria. After the final location of the airport had been decided, funds were gathered between 1935 and 1939 to build a small hangar and begin expanding the airstrip which would become Los Rodeos. Operations into Los Rodeos recommenced on 23 January 1941 with a De Havilland DH89A Dragon Rapide operating an Iberia flight from Gando in Gran Canaria. By 1946, more hangars, a passenger terminal and an paved runway had been built, and the airport was officially opened to all national and international traffic. The runway was stretched at various times during the 1940s and 1950s, reaching a length of in 1953, by which time the airport was also equipped with runway edge lighting and an air-ground radio, enabling night operations. Development since the 1960s By 1964, runway 12/30 had been stretched to to accommodate the DC-8, new navigation aids were installed, and the apron was expanded to provide more parking spaces for aircraft. In 1971, with the prospect of the Boeing 747 flying into the airport, the runway was reinforced and an