The threat has been hanging out there, but it’s now official. Amsterdam Schiphol has released its capacity declaration for the 2024 summer season, and the number of slots available has dropped. This is just one part of the government’s efforts to make Schiphol “quieter, cleaner and better.” I’m not sure I agree that all three will be achieved.
Back in April, an eight-point plan was rolled out to make Schiphol green. Ok, it won’t actually make it green — it’s an airport — but it’s going to make it green…er. Let’s just walk through the plan and I’ll explain the recent updates along the way.
New rules with clear limits for noise and CO2 emissions
The idea here is to get away from the idea of limits based on the number of aircraft movements. By 2025/2026, Schiphol wants to be running based on noise and CO2 limits. This means quieter and more efficient airplanes will enable more flights to operate. This is not a bad idea in that it does push airlines to use their most efficient aircraft, and it adds pressure to manufacturers to keep making strides in efficiency. But we aren’t there yet. This is still a couple years away.
For now, Schiphol is just sticking with the idea of limiting aircraft movements. Next summer will be capped at 280,645 movements, a decrease of more than 12,000 or nearly 60 per day. This will keep Schiphol under its new self-imposed cap of 460,000 movements per year. What does that mean in reality? Well, let’s take a look.
Using Cirium data, I pulled scheduled aircraft movements by year going back to 2005. Then, assuming 2.5 percent of slots are to be reserved for cargo (as you’ll see down below), I set the cap at 448,500. And here’s the result:
Amsterdam Schiphol Scheduled Aircraft Movements
Schiphol easily exceeded those limits before the pandemic, and it is rapidly approaching them again. What this really comes down to is that there will be no growth potential in the future.
The noisiest aircraft are no longer welcome
This is actually rather laughable for the most part. Schiphol has now banned 87 different aircraft types from flying into the airport. As the airport explains:
These types of aircraft were already no longer flying to and from Schiphol, but the ban in the capacity declaration means that there is a guarantee that they cannot come back either.
I’m pretty sure there are other things that will prevent some of these airplanes from coming back. For example, the L-1011 is on this list. At last check, that sexy beast of an airplane had exactly one operational example left in the world, and it’s used to launch rockets by Orbital Sciences. Oh, and in case you were wondering, this airplane is on the list four times thanks to different variants being banned. I don’t think Schiphol has to worry.
There’s also a hilarious assortment of airplanes gone by including the Boeing 707 and 727, the BAC One-Eleven, the Douglas DC-8 and DC-10, the Fokker F28 (which I thought might get a pass as a Dutch product, even though no airline flies it), the Hawker Siddeley HS 748, and yes, the Lockheed L-100 Hercules. I haven’t even covered the former Soviet aircraft on the list, like the mighty Antonov An-30 which is definitely a real threat to return to Dutch skies…
The only ones on this list that might actually do something are the Boeing 767-200 Freighter (but only the freighter, for some reason), the Antonov An-124 freighter, and maybe the Douglas MD-82/83s. (The Antonov An-225 is also on this list, but we’ve all seen those terrible pictures showing that the Russians destroyed the only existing aircraft in the invasion of Ukraine.) But really, this is mostly for show and won’t have any impact.
No take-offs between 00:00 and 06:00, no landings between 00:00 and 05:00
Curfews are common at several major European airports, but Amsterdam is not one of them… yet. Now, the Dutch are saying that in the next couple of years, nothing can take off between midnight and 6am while nothing can land between midnight and 5am.
For passenger aircraft, this really isn’t a huge issue. There are some flights scheduled during those times, mostly on Dutch leisure airlines Transavia, Corendon Dutch, and TUIfly Netherlands. Those airlines seem to enjoy scheduling very early departures starting in the 4 o’clock hour and ramping up quickly in the 5 o’clock hour, almost entirely down to Mediterranean beach destinations. Having such an early departure gets travelers where they want to be early, but it also allows the airlines to drive up utilization. Those same airlines have arrivals after midnight for the same reasons.
Now, what I imagine will happen is those airlines will stop scheduling flights before 5:30am and will then just wait at the end of the runway until the clock turns 6. They will lose some productivity, but it’ll still be fine… unless it’s a hard curfew that forces airlines to divert if they are late. I suppose we’ll see.
Cargo, of course, loves to operate overnight, but that won’t be happening at Schiphol, at least not during those hours.
No more private jets and small business aviation at Schiphol
Last year, Schiphol had a limit of 17,000 private jet operations. This year it will cut that down to 12,000 (with 7,200 in the summer season), on its way to an eventual zero. This doesn’t impact me in the slightest personally, but I’m sure some rich people will be particularly displeased.
What’s interesting about this one is that there isn’t really another airport that’s really close to Amsterdam — like a Teterboro near New York — for private jets. The nearest seems to be Lelystad Airport which is about a 40 minute drive into the center of Amsterdam. Rotterdam is also about 50 minutes away on the other side of town, to the southwest.
No additional runways
Amsterdam loves its runways so much that it names them. There was a plan in place to build a parallel runway to the southern Kaagban runway that exists today (also known as 06/24). That is now going to be scrapped.
To be fair, Amsterdam still has six runways, including Polderbaan which was built in 2003 about 3,000 miles to the west of the terminals. I don’t imagine runways will be a factor with other restrictions in place anyway.
Annual investment of €10 million in local environment and residents
What does this mean? Go ahead and tell us, Schiphol…
Together with the central government, Schiphol is setting up an environmental fund for the local area. Between now and 2030, Schiphol will be making a total of €70 million (€10 million per year) available so that investments can be made in innovative construction concepts, home insulation and area development for an improved living environment.
Ok.
Safeguarding cargo
This seems rather strange since Amsterdam is cutting back on night flights, but Amsterdam wants to make sure cargo can still flow. So, it is going to set aside 2.5 percent of slots specifically for cargo operations.
People first
This is one of those fluffy ones. I’ll let the airport explain:
Schiphol… considers it important that there are good terms and conditions of employment for everyone working at the airport. Schiphol is committed to better pay in all sectors, better protection of employees against emissions, less competition in the handling sector and an improvement in working conditions for all (baggage) handing employees.
In the end, this will hurt Amsterdam’s ability to grow as a global hub. Maybe things will change in the future when the restrictions end up being based on environmental limits instead of hard caps on movements. But for now, this seems like a risky move.
