Goal to reduce Schiphol flight movements to 440,000 next year unfeasible: Minister

Minister Mark Harbers (Infrastructure) thinks it unfeasible to reduce the maximum number of flights at Schiphol from 500,000 to 440,000 per year from the end of 2023, as the Cabinet decided earlier this year. Harbers said this in a prepublication of an interview with Luchtvaartnieuws Magazine that will publish on Saturday. The government has to follow a European procedure for downsizing Schiphol, and that will likely only be completed by the autumn of 2024, the Minister said.

Harbers said that instead, the government aims to shrink the airport to between 465,000 and 450,000 flights per year before the end of 2023. The Minister explained that this goal is achievable by stopping “anticipatory enforcement,” which forces Schiphol to comply more with the rules.

“We will do it in two phases. The first step that the Netherlands will take itself is to stop anticipatory enforcement, and we will also add a regulation for preferential runway use, which is already happening,” the Minister told Luchtvaartnieuws. “This is a national competence and can be introduced next year on November 1. It does not provide a hard number as it is up to the airlines to keep the operation within existing noise points. We expect that with the current fleet mix, this will lead to between 450,000 and 465,000 flight movements.”

For the second step, reducing the number of flights to 440,000 per year, the Netherlands must go through the European Union’s procedure, which takes more time. “I think we can wrap this up on 1 November 2024.”

At the end of June, the Cabinet announced its intention to reduce Schiphol’s flight movements for a better balance between a good international airport with the associated good business climate and the importance of a better and healthier living environment.