August was the busiest month at Schiphol since the coronavirus pandemic

Last month was the busiest month at Schiphol since October 2019. The airport is handling significantly more passengers this summer than last year and is approaching the passenger numbers of the last summer before the coronavirus pandemic.

The airport received 6.4 million passengers last month, an increase of six percent compared to August 2023. There were slightly more passengers in October 2019, and August of that year had 6.8 million passengers.

Schiphol had more than 43,000 flights last month, almost four percent more than a year ago. The last time a single month had more flights than this was also October 2019.

The number of passengers dropped significantly in 2020 due to lockdowns and travel restrictions connected to the coronavirus pandemic. At the lowest point in April 2020, there were only 4,200 flights at Schiphol, with less than 127,000 passengers. Since then, the numbers have increased, although the recovery has still been slower in other parts of the world.

Last month, the most passengers traveled directly to or from Schiphol. Spain was the most popular destination, but there were also many flights to the United Kingdom, Greece, Italy, and the United States.

The figures include almost 2.2 million transfer passengers and 1.1 million unique passengers. According to the internationally accepted counting method, they were counted twice, as passengers on arrival and as passengers on departure.

Schiphol believes they will have more passengers next year than before the coronavirus pandemic for the first time, said CEO Pieter van Oord in a press conference at the end of last month. "You see that people want to fly. The planes are full despite price increases of between 50 and 100 percent during the last four years."

Schiphol also doesn't have to reduce as much as expected due to the new government, Minister Barry Madlener (Infrastructure) recently indicated. Previously, it was thought that the maximum number of flights had to be reduced from 460,000 to 470,000 per year; now, it will probably be 475,000 to 485,000. Madlener asked the European Commission for advice on the plans.