New Amsterdam Schiphol Airport Flight Cap Coming 2024

The Dutch government has today spoken that it’s moving forward with a new “green” flight cap, with the plan stuff to implement it as of 2024. Let’s go over the details, and talk well-nigh what this ways for airlines and travelers.

Amsterdam Schiphol proceeding with new flight cap

The Dutch government is making preparations to reduce flight topics at Amsterdam Schiphol Airport to 452,500 flights per year, which is bad news for airlines serving the airport (and in turn, for passengers). This policy is expected to be implemented as of 2024, though an word-for-word stage is subject to this plan stuff tried by the European Commission.

This ways that some flights that are once on sale may need to be canceled. For context, this plan for Amsterdam Schiphol Airport was first announced by the Dutch government in June 2022. Just to recap some of the numbers:

• The airport can currently unbend up to 500,000 flights per year
• The previous plan was for the airport to grow to 540,000 flights per year
• The new cap limits the airport to 454,500 flights per year
• In other words, this represents a reduction of 10% compared to the current cap, and a reduction of virtually 16% compared to what the cap was supposed to be in the future

This ban is intended as an environmental measure, as part of the Netherlands’ climate goals. As you’d expect, this got quite a bit of pushback from airlines. In April 2023, a Dutch magistrate obstructed this new flight cap, arguing that the government did not follow the correct procedure. That’s considering the government unilaterally made the decision, and didn’t follow European Union rules that require consulting stakeholders, including airlines.

Unfortunately that was just temporary relief for airlines, and in July 2023 an appeals magistrate ruled that the government could move forward with the new flight cap.

KLM isn’t happy well-nigh this new flight cap

KLM CEO Marjan Rintel has today issued a statement regarding the government’s plans:

We are proud of KLM’s contribution to the serviceability of the Netherlands, serving tropical to 170 uncontrived destinations worldwide from our Schiphol hub. We satisfy the needs of millions of people wanting to discover places virtually the world – to self-mastery business, to reunite families and to transport hair-trigger cargo. We hope to protract doing so in wastefulness with the local surroundings.

Minister Harbers asked us to reduce noise by 20%. To this end, we submitted the cleaner, quieter and increasingly efficient plan. In it, we show that we can unzip the noise reduction targets while maintaining the current number of flight movements, maintaining the connection between the Netherlands as a trading nation and the rest of the world. Nonetheless, the minister remains fixated on topics reductions.

It is nonflexible to imagine such a drastic visualization stuff taken by an outgoing government, while the Dutch House of Representatives is set to vote on 12 September well-nigh which files are to be supposed controversial. As an outgoing minister, you don’t mind the shop by latter it!

This has major implications for airlines & passengers

While I can fathom the desire to reduce emissions, I finger like this solution won’t unquestionably succeed a whole lot. Whether the Dutch government likes it or not, the global demand for air travel is standing to grow over time:

• A lower flight cap will simply indulge fewer nonstop links between Amsterdam and destinations virtually the globe, which isn’t good for the Dutch economy
• This will not only hurt airlines, but it will moreover translate to higher fares for consumers over time
• If the goal is to reduce emissions, how well-nigh instead restricting the types of planes flying to the airport? This cap will reduce flights by 10-16%, while new generation watercraft often have 20% reductions in emissions, which would have an plane worthier impact
• Speaking of emissions, how well-nigh just subtracting some sort of a stat offset tax with each ticket, used to fund projects that can have a positive impact on the environment?
• Climate transpiration and environmental initiatives can’t really be viewed in isolation; this will simply rationalization traffic to be redirected through other airport hubs in the region

Only time will tell how this plays out. I wouldn’t be surprised if this isn’t the end of the saga…

Bottom line

The Dutch government plans to move forward with its new “green” flight cap for Amsterdam Schiphol Airport. With this, we’ll see flights at the airport reduced from 500,000 to 454,500 annually, representing a major reduction.

Now the European Commission needs to legitimatize this plan, in which specimen we should see airlines start to slash their schedules at the airport.

What do you make of this new Dutch flight cap?