Record summer for Dutch airports: over 22 million travelers processed

The airports in the Netherlands have a record summer behind them. In total 22.2 million people traveled through the Dutch airports in the third quarter, an increase of 6.8 percent compared to the summer of 2016, Statistics Netherlands reported on Wednesday.

Schiphol handled the vast majority of these passengers with nearly 19.8 million travelers using the airport over the summer months. That is an increase of 6.1 percent. The number of people traveling through the Amsterdam airport has grown uninterrupted since the third quarter of 2010. Schiphol's busiest day was on July 28th - a total of 235 thousand passengers landed, took off or stepped over at the airport on that day.

Eindhoven Airport and Rotterdam The Hague Airport, the two largest regional airports in the Netherlands, also broke their records for busiest summer ever this year. Eindhoven processed nearly 1.7 million passengers, an increase of 10.8 percent compared to the third quarter of last year. And Rotterdam The Hague Airport had 577 thousand people across its floor, an increase of 17.1 percent.

Maastricht Aachen Airport and Groningen Eelde Airport saw the strongest passenger growths in the third quarter, with plus 36.7 and 32.4 percent respectively. According to the stats office, the growth at Maastricht airport can largely be attributed to new destinations Faro, Crete and Palma de Mallorca. At Groningen airport, more passengers flew to and from Crete, Gran Canaria and Copenhagen. These two airports together only handle about 0.6 percent of passengers at Dutch airports.