This is evident from documents provided by the Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management (IenW). Those documents were made public after an appeal to the Open Government Act.
‘Shorter approach routes’ to Schiphol Airport, among others, ‘mean fewer detours and therefore fewer emissions of harmful substances, such as CO2 and nitrogen’, is a frequently used argument used to justify the airspace revision, particularly by the Ministry of Infrastructure and the Environment. This revision includes the expansion of a military training airspace in the northern Netherlands and new approach routes for landing traffic from the southeast.
Environmental gains are not too bad
However, internal documents of the Airspace Revision Steering Group show that the environmental gains are not too bad. ‘The gain from the new southeastern civil access, purely looking at CO2, is lower than expected and only compensates to a limited extent the loss caused by ‘detouring’ in the north.’
In other words: the environmental gains in the southeast are more than lost in the north. In simulations with new flight routes in the spring of 2022, a similar conclusion is drawn: ‘the difference’ between flying in a revised airspace and the existing one ‘is expected to be small.’ This seems to eliminate one of the arguments for it.
New airspace classification
Since 2019, I&W, Defense and air traffic control in the Netherlands have been working on a new layout of our airspace. This should make it possible to practice with the new F-35 fighter jet in the north of the Netherlands.
Because an existing training area in the northern Netherlands is being expanded, an area in the southeast of the Netherlands may become redundant. And that clears the way for more direct civil traffic from the southeast towards Schiphol: the so-called fourth approach route.
One way to realize the environmental benefit is to allow air traffic above 6,000 feet to fly as directly as possible to and from airports. Below this, the presence of residential areas must be taken into account, but above this the following applies: the shorter the route, the less the burden on the environment.
The 6,000-foot limit comes quite out of the blue, according to the internal documents of the steering committee. ‘In consultation with the ministers, it has been decided that noise up to 6,000 feet will be prioritized and CO2 and flight efficiency above that. This choice is based, among other things, on insights from air traffic controllers and comparable guidelines in, for example, the United Kingdom.’
Border is ‘arbitrary choice’
But it is and remains ‘an arbitrary choice’ that requires ‘further substantiation’. If this substantiation is provided after much deliberation, then, according to the steering group, there is ‘too much goal-oriented reasoning and that requires more attention’. For example, discussions have been held with the Schiphol residents’ contact point and the Dutch aerospace center, but the arguments are ‘very fluid’.
There is a lot of discussion about those 6000 feet, 1828 meters. Airplanes are clearly audible at that height, so if flying over residential areas is allowed at that height because this would save kerosene, this may lead to protests from residents who have planes flying over their homes at that height.
An important reason for the 6,000-foot limit is also evident from the documents. If the limit were raised at the request of municipalities or provinces, to 7,000 or 8,000 or even 10,000 feet, ‘the impact on Schiphol operations would be enormous’. Departing flights follow fixed departure procedures up to 6,000 feet and these would have to be overhauled if the border were to be adjusted.
Growth Lelystad
The Airspace Review also has as a ‘high level goal’ the ‘growth of Lelystad Airport from 10,000 to 45,000 flights per year’. One of the ‘top risks’ for the Airspace Revision program with ‘potentially major consequences’ is therefore a decision not to open Lelystad Airport at all. This could mean that there is no ‘political urgency’ for the airspace review or parts of the process may have to be completed again.
The chance of this has increased now that the House of Representatives adopted a motion at the end of January calling for Lelystad Airport to no longer open to commercial flights. The four parties negotiating a new government are divided, making it unclear what the fate of the airspace review will be.
