We were wrong! Sorry! Last week we wrote that Schiphol had stopped night flights. We did that based on the Traffic and Transport Figures from Schiphol itself in which ‘zero’ night and early morning flights were reported.
(And we asked Schiphol’s communications department whether the stop was temporary or permanent. Three days later, Stefan Donker, spokesperson, emailed Corporate Affairs, back: “It’s a shame to see that your article on this subject had already been published before we were asked for a response. In this case it could have prevented factual inaccuracies.” Yes, it’s a shame, Stefan, that it takes you three days to answer our question and that you publish incorrect figures. Stefan reports that there is “an error in the night and early morning flights for March 2024. In reality, there were 769 night flights and 680 early morning flights, instead of the 0 flights stated in the current document. We are going to correct that.” So Stefan is going to ‘correct’ it. The figures have now changed, but without explanation. So not: “our first news item contained wrong figures.” No, just pretend you’re crazy and publish different figures without any explanation. But Stefan requires us to ‘correct’, because stopping the night flights is ‘incorrect’. We therefore have to correct this because Schiphol publishes incorrect figures. We didn’t think so. But we lay well find out where the wrong numbers come from.)
There is something going on with those night flights. They cause the most nuisance, Minister Harbers has said that he thinks Schiphol should stop and Schiphol wants that too, but is not taking any initiative, Stefan Donker: “It is up to politicians to make a decision about this.”
May holidays: 10 percent more
In March 2024, Schiphol handled more than 38,000 flights. That is 15 percent more than in February 2023. In the first three months of 2024, 18 percent more flights were completed than in the comparable period of 2023.
It is expected that April and May will show another increase. During the May holidays of 2024 (from April 26), the number of passengers expected is 10 percent above the number of comparable period in 2023.
Schiphol is still allowed to handle a maximum of 500,000 flights per year, just as in the period before corona, when this was also achieved in 2017, 2018 and 2019. A new upper limit of 460,000 has been withdrawn by the cabinet after objections from the European Commission and threats from the US. The Dutch State was successfully taken to court due to noise pollution for residents of Schiphol. The judge determined that the State had to take more into account the nuisance to local residents.
Monthly figures
The graph below shows the number of flights per month at Schiphol since the beginning of 2019 (the last pre-corona year). November 2023 to February 2024 amounts to 35,000, March is above that.
Annual figures
In 2023, 442,000 flights were completed, in 2022 this amounted to 398,000 flights. 2021 and 2020 were far below that. In 2019, 2018 and 2017, Schiphol ended with almost 500,000 flights. Below are the totals from 1992. In 2024 this only concerns January to March (108,367).
Night flights
Minister Harbers had previously urged limiting night flights from Schiphol because they cause the most inconvenience. In the first two months of 2024, 4,430 night and early morning flights were operated.
About 4 percent of flights in recent years were night flights (arriving or departing between 11 p.m. and 6 a.m.), 2 percent were early morning (arriving or departing between 6 a.m. and 7 a.m.). The total for 2024 is only January to March. The night and early morning flights are mainly holiday flights from Transavia flights, the rest are mainly from KLM.
Also read Our Schiphol file
By Piet Bakker, figures, news and response from Schiphol, graphs and photo: De Orkaan.
