Transavia cancels 240 Schiphol flights this summer

Transavia is canceling 240 flights from Schiphol between July 7 and August 14 due to the staff shortages at the airport. The cancellations affect over 13,000 Transavia travelers. The airline managed to book 70 percent of affected travelers on a replacement flight, for example, from another airport. The remaining 30 percent's tickets have been canceled. 

When canceling flights at Schiphol, Transavia "looked at flights that are flown more often in a day and flights that can also be reached via other airports," the airline said in a statement. "The passengers for whom there was no alternative will immediately receive a refund of the ticket costs or can postpone their trip to another time (August 28, 2022 - March 23)." Transavia normally flies 55 times a day from Schiphol, a spokeswoman said.

Transavia had already decided to sell only a minimal number of tickets for the summer to avoid disappointment as much as possible. "Sales from the airports in Eindhoven, Rotterdam, and Brussels will remain open, although the flights there are now filling up quickly."

"There is a group that is the victims of this reduction in capacity," CEO Marcel de Nooijer said in a statement. "That hurts. This is a huge loss for our passengers and for our company. The forced reduction of the number of passengers is highly undesirable and must be a one-off and short-lived."

Schiphol has been struggling with massively long lines since the May holidays, mainly due to staff shortages in baggage handling and airport security. Last week, Schiphol announced there would be an average of 13,500 too many passengers to handle in July if all scheduled planes were entirely full. That is almost 17 percent of seats planned per day on average. 

Like other airlines, Transavia had to reduce the number of seats for passengers departing from Schiphol in July. Transavia is already taking measures for August to "not make people wait so long," a spokesperson said. 

Other companies are still working out how to reduce their capacity. Travel organization Corendon moved 150 flights in July and August from Schiphol to Rotterdam The Hague airport last week and said that "all holidays booked on Corendon flights will continue in some way."

KLM previously said that despite the measures, it would probably not have to cancel many flights. The primary user of Schiphol - on the hook for about half of the seat reductions - thinks that it can limit its passenger numbers enough by just selling fewer tickets so that existing bookings are not affected.