Just Flight has recently released their rendition of Tenerife North-Ciudad de La Laguna Airport (GCXO) for Microsoft Flight Simulator, serving the city of Santa Cruz de Tenerife in Tenerife - the largest and most populous island in the canaries = with a yearly average of 6 million passengers.

After five years of fund gathering, the airport was built in the late 30s to improve a spot where flights were already happening regularly ten years prior with C.L.A.S.S.A.

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Commercial operations on the newly built airport started in 1941 with Iberia’s fleet of DH89A’s. Five years after its first proper commercial flight, the airport already had a couple of hangars, a passenger terminal, and a paved runway while also opening for domestic and international traffic—multiple runway expansions followed during the subsequent decades.

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The most significant runway expansion happened in 1964, when the runway was stretched to 3000 m to accommodate the DC-8, along with new navigation aids and an apron expansion. An ILS system was installed seven years later, in 1971. 

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That decade marked the inauguration of Tenerife South, which only came to be because Tenerife North often suffered with thick fog, the main contributor to the Tenerife tragedy of 1977 involving two Boeing 747s, still the deadliest accident in aviation history.

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A new terminal was inaugurated in 2002 with a four-story terminal building, 12 gates, and its international reopening after 24 years of domestic-only operations. 

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Air Europa, Binter Canarias, CanaryFly, Iberia, IberiaExpress, Plus Ultra Líneas Aéreas, Ryanair, and Vueling currently serve it.

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The scenery features an accurate rendition of the airport, with PBR textures and objects, animated jetways, animated custom vehicles, a modeled interior, realistic ground textures, and more.

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It’s available on SimMarket for roughly $14.38, requiring at least 1.99 GB of free hard disk space to install.

Stay tuned to Threshold for more flight simulation news!

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