Netherlands forcing Schiphol to cut 5,000 overnight flights, ban loud aircraft at night
The Dutch government is reducing the number of flights that can take off and land at Schiphol Airport at night. Next year, the Amsterdam airport can allow 27,000 overnight flight movements, compared to 32,000 now, outgoing Minster Mark Harbers of Infrastructure announced on Friday. The decision not only complies with recent court rulings, but actually allows Schiphol to increase flight movements by up to 17,500 per year.
The government is also banning the loudest planes from using the airport overnight, between 11 p.m. and 7 a.m. Schiphol must also make it more expensive for passenger and cargo firms to operate noisy aircraft so that airlines are encouraged to opt for a quieter fleet.
"As of November 2024, KLM will voluntarily replace noisy aircraft at night with quieter ones," the Infrastructure Ministry said in a statement. The airline operates more flights than any other company at Schiphol. The Dutch State also owns 9.1 percent of parent company Air France-KLM, and nearly 70 percent of the Schiphol Group.
These measures are necessary to comply with a court ruling ordering the government to do more to protect locals from airport-related nuisances. According to the court, the government failed to enforce applicable noise pollution regulations at the airport for years and “systematically” let the airport’s interests outweigh those of local residents. Local residents are preparing a mass claim of 3 billion euros against the Dutch State as a result of this ruling.
Notably, by cutting overnight flights, Schiphol will be allowed more flight movements during the day. Slot coordinator Hugo Thomassen of Airport Coordination Netherlands recently explained that, according to international rules, giving up a night flight creates five times more “noise space” at the edges of the day and ten times as much during the day. It was previously agreed that half of the “noise gain” should go to aviation itself.
By scrapping 5,000 night flights, Schiphol’s total flight movements may increase from 452,500 to 460,000 or 470,000 next year, growth of 2 to 4 percent. “I know that a higher number of flight movements is a disappointment for many local residents and that it can feel to them as if we are taking a different course,” Harbers said on Friday.
"That is not true. Our goal is unchanged, but we are making some adjustments to the way we want to achieve it." KLM has been particularly vocal against the Cabinet's lack of nuance when approaching the issue, saying that the airline needs to be able to maintain its schedule and list of destinations to earn the revenue needed to continue updating its fleet with newer, quieter, and more fuel efficient aircraft.
The cuts to the overnight schedule could be very problematic for Transavia, the low-cost KLM subsidiary. The second-largest passenger service at Schiphol holds roughly 73 percent of takeoff and landing slots between the hours of midnight and 5 a.m., Transavia CEO Marcel de Nooijer said last month.
To keep airfare lower, the company needs to operate each airplane about three times per day. Combined with the cheaper price of overnight slots, Transavia said that was how they manage to make flying affordable for people. TUI also shared similar concerns in March.
Transavia also said that one issue the Cabinet should anticipate is that more flight movements will simply shift to just before and just after the overnight window, making the situation very noisy during those times.
