Schiphol Airport breaks passenger record; growth faster than expected

Schiphol airport processed a record number of 63.6 million passengers last year, 9 percent more than in 2015, Schiphol Group announced. The number of flight movements increased by more than 6 percent to 479 thousand flights. If this growth rate continues, Schiphol will exceed its maximum number of allowed flights before the end of the year, ANP reports.

Up until 2020 Schiphol is only allowed 500 thousand flight movements a year.

To give Schiphol more space to function as international hub, it was decided last year that Lelystad Airport will be extended to take over part of the Europe holiday traffic from Schiphol. In November, however, it became clear that these plans have already been considerably delayed. The renewed Lelystad airport was set to open in April 2018, but the opening will now be at least a year later.

According to the Volkskrant, the decision on whether and how Schiphol's growth will be limited, is largely in the hands of the next parliament, which will be elected on March 15th. The current parliament is very much divided on the issue.

Schiphol group also reported that the number of destinations reachable from Schiphol remained unchanged at 322. The number of cargo connections increased slightly, while the number of passenger destinations saw a slight decrease.