Mount Etna’s eruption resulted in flight delays out of Malta and the cancellation of a return flight on Friday.

Catania airport in Sicily was closed after Mount Etna, the largest active volcano in Europe, erupted and spewed ash into the sky, disrupting air travel. 

A spokesperson for Malta International Airport said that, due to the eruption, flight FR367 departed 80 minutes late to Palermo instead of Catania and the return flight FR368 was cancelled. There was also a delay in the departure of another two flights - KM640 and KM641 - also to Catania.

"So far there’s no information regarding the evening flights operating to and from Catania," the spokesperson said.

Catania airport said flights should resume at 3pm and asked travellers to check the status of their flights before heading to the airport. 

"The runway at Catania Airport is unusable due to volcanic ash fall: both arrivals and departures are suspended," the company managing the airport said in a statement on Friday morning.

Ash plumes shot up into the sky as high as 4.5 kilometres, Italy's National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology (INGV) wrote on X, formerly Twitter, on Thursday.  

Millions of passengers transit through Catania airport every year, connecting them to eastern Sicily, among Italy's most popular tourist hotspots.