In the late 1960s, the island authorities of Tenerife found the need for a second airport at a new location, because the existing airport (then called "Los Rodeos Airport"), now known as Tenerife North–Ciudad de La Laguna Airport, did not meet technical requirements due to adverse weather conditions, especially low visibility in foggy conditions; this was exemplified by the events of what became the deadliest aviation accident in history, when in 1977, two Boeing 747s collided on the runway at Los Rodeos, killing 583 people, in part, due to very low visibility. Only 20 months later, with the disaster still fresh in people's minds, the new airport was inaugurated on 6 November 1978, by Queen Sofía of Spain, to whom the airport is dedicated. The first flight was an Iberia flight IB187 from Lanzarote, which was operated by a McDonnell Douglas DC-9 landing at 10:17. The airport was constructed close to the Tomás Zerolo airfield, which closed when TFS opened. In June 1980, Viasa inaugurated flights to Caracas. The link served the large proportion of the Canarian diaspora that resided in Venezuela. The airline ceased operations in 1997, after which Avensa started plying the route. Due to financial problems, Avensa later let Santa Bárbara Airlines take over its flights to Spain and then began code-sharing on them. In October 2002, Santa Bárbara commenced service to Reina Sofía Airport using a McDonnell Douglas DC-10. It switched to Tenerife North Airport four months later. With the launch of service in late 2026, Air Canada will offer the only service to North America . United Airlines provided thrice weekly-service to Tenerife from Newark between June 2022 and May 2025.