Amsterdam Schiphol Airport says it will be able to accommodate a total of 483,000 flight movements in 2024 after the Dutch government scrapped a controversial piece of experimental legislation that would have capped the number of flights at the airport to just 460,000 annual flight movements.
Although the airport is legally allowed to accommodate as many as half a million annual flight movements, the Royal Schiphol Group which operates the airport, said it would need to reduce the number of flights at peak times to ensure the airport was able to cope.
The new cap has been welcomed by Dutch flag carrier KLM, who said the additional flying rights would benefit its continued recovery from the pandemic. The airline did, however, criticise the airport operator for giving it so little time to prepare its 2024 flight schedules.
The Hague had wanted to impose a flight cap at Schiphol as part of efforts to reduce noise pollution and CO2 emissions around the airport but the government had faced fierce opposition from across the aviation industry.
Despite several legal challenges, the caretaker government ploughed ahead with the experimental legislation until it abruptly shelved the law last month following a meeting with U.S. officials.
The Biden administration had been mulling countermeasures against the Netherlands because U.S. carriers, including JetBlue, faced losing the right to fly to Schiphol altogether.
Schiphol Airport said the Dutch independent slot coordinator would now discuss with airlines how to reduce the number of flight movements during peak hours. The airport said it hoped this could be achieved voluntarily but didn’t rule out the possibility of some airlines losing prime slots against their will.
I imagine that the surprise election of Geert Wilders and his Freedom Party had quite a lot to do with getting rid of this ridiculous initiative which made travel more expensive and less convenient for no reason anybody could demonstrate.