Five-fold passenger increase at Schiphol in April compared to last year

Some 787,000 passengers passed through the gates of Amsterdam Schiphol airport in April this year. That is an unusual increase of 520% percent compared to the same period last month when a coronavirus pandemic grounded planes all over the world, Schiphol stated in their press release.

Out of nearly 787,000 passengers in April, some 460,000 passengers transferred at Schiphol. The latest figures are still nowhere near the pre-crisis level. In April 2019, Schiphol saw 6.1 million passengers, compared to 127,000 in the fourth month of 2020.

In the first four months of this year, the total number of passengers arriving or departing from the second busiest airport in the European Union was still 77% percent lower compared to last year. That is a result of the fact that coronavirus restrictions that impacted the global travel industry were largely introduced in March 2020.

While passenger transport has been in a slump for more than a year now, more cargo is being transported, even compared to the period before the pandemic. "The number of full cargo flights has increased compared to 2019, from 1,124 to 2,070," Schiphol stated.

The Dutch government’s global negative travel advice in relation to international travel was allowed to expire on schedule on Sunday. From then on, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs will return to announcing travel restrictions based on a system of four colors, in which the risk is calculated for each individual country or region.

Last week, a list of 16 destinations was announced in regard to which the travel advice changed from orange to yellow or green. That means that travel to these destinations is no longer strongly discouraged.