Local residents sue Schiphol over failing noise management

People living around Schiphol are taking the airport to court. They want the court to force Schiphol to properly monitor noise pollution caused by air traffic, and for violations to be punished, a spokesperson for the Human Environment and Transport Inspectorate confirmed to NU.nl after reports in the Volkskrant.

According to the Inspectorate, currently violations are mainly monitored and recorded according to the new standards and enforcement system that was implemented in 2015. But at this stage, the airport is not penalized for violations. This is "the result of the application of the rules from the new system", which have not yet been formally laid down in the law, the spokesperson said to NU.nl.

Local residents now call on the court to force the Inspectorate to take action against violations when it comes to noise pollution. How many noise pollution violations the Inspectorate recorded for Schiphol since the introduction of the new system, is not clear.

The number of flight movements at Schiphol increased significantly over the past years, and the airport is very close to reaching its 500 thousand flight movements per year limit, which is in place until 2020. According to local residents, the noise pollution around the airport increased with the number of flights.