Amsterdam to demand 12% reduction in Schiphol flight movements

The City of Amsterdam will take a stronger stance to demand that the number of flight movements at Schiphol Airport fall from 500,000 to 440,000 per year. That would equate to a 12 percent reduction which essentially matches the outgoing Cabinet’s proposal, which was struck down by the courts for not following European regulations.

The Cabinet wanted to cut the number of flights to finally address noise complaints from area residents who have had to deal with years of growth at the airport. European rules state that a balanced approach needs to be taken when making such cuts to deal with noise complaints, including a thorough investigation of other possible solutions.

The Dutch State, represented by the Ministry of Finance, holds a 70 percent ownership stake in the Royal Schiphol Group, the parent company of Schiphol Airport. Amsterdam owns 20 percent, airport operator group ADP owns 8 percent, and the remaining 2 percent is held by the City of Rotterdam.

Hester van Buren, the alderman responsible for airport policy in Amsterdam, said to Parool, “From now on, we will be an activist shareholder. With right-wing political parties currently wrangling in The Hague to see if they can agree on enough policy initiatives to form a new national coalition government, Van Buren said the capital will no longer simply rubber-stamp Cabinet policy. She intends to use the city’s substantial, but minority shareholder votes to try and block Cabinet proposals that do not meet the needs of Amsterdam residents.

“I will no longer say, ‘This is not up to us,’ or, ‘We only have 20 percent.,” Van Buren told the newspaper. “We are now in favor of downsizing, night closures and no private jets. If this is not heeded, we will make this clear as a municipality and as a shareholder.”

Schiphol CEO Ruud Sondag already made a similar proposal in April, which he wanted to implement next year. This would put a ban on overnight commercial passenger and cargo flights, preventing them from departing between midnight and 6 a.m., and from landing between midnight and 5 a.m., with some exceptions for safety and emergency reasons. This decision alone would cut about 10,000 flights annually.

He also said that the airport could slash another 17,000 flights annually by getting rid of most private passenger flights. Combined, that would bring flight movements down to 473,000 per year. Sondag wants to further address noise issues by gradually implementing a ban on loud, outdated aircraft from using the airport, such as the Boeing 747-400, which is now used most often for cargo flights at Schiphol.

Van Buren wants even more to be done to combat noise pollution and environmental impact by cutting another 33,000 flights annually. Van Buren cited data showing that 141,000 people complained about Schiphol aircraft noise in 2019, and 17,000 people around the airport suffer from sleep disturbances. She believes that even with a minority stake, the city can convince national and European politicians to take more measures. She did not strongly address modernization plans in place at KLM, the largest airline at Schiphol. to continue to invest heavily in aircraft that is significantly quieter and more fuel efficient.

“I will be discussing this with the City Council in the coming months. How far do we go, what do we want? I am also consulting with other stakeholders, from residents’ groups to companies, but from now on with contraction as a starting point,” Van Buren said. She claimed it is a departure from the position of previous aldermen and mayors in the capital, and said she will be unrelenting, even if the policy shift makes the city less attractive to international business.

“The economy has always been our number one priority, but aren’t sustainability, sleep, emissions and working conditions more important? We are making the change by putting the living environment and local residents first, not the companies.”

Apart from that, she wondered, “Are all those flights to London, Paris and New York really necessary? We certainly shouldn’t fly to Brussels anymore. We really forget the quality of life, there are so many people who suffer from a seriously disturbed night’s sleep.”