Fog affects 575 passenger flights at Dutch airports; KLM cancels 40 more on Thursday

Dutch airline KLM announced that it will cancel 20 departures and 20 arrivals on Thursday as it anticipates the continuation of thick fog at Schiphol Airport. The limited visibility caused dozens of flight cancellations and hundreds of delays at the airport outside of Amsterdam, and more issues were building up at the Eindhoven Airport and Rotterdam The Hague Airport.

KLM cancelled 96 flights by Wednesday afternoon because of the fog, accounting for the vast majority of scrapped flights at the airport. Airlines cancelled a total of 58 departing passenger flights, and 55 more which were due to arrive at Schiphol starting from the beginning of operations on Wednesday morning.

Another 248 arrivals were delayed with the air traffic control continuing to regulate arriving flight volume due to limited visibility. By 1 p.m., airlines announced delays to 166 departing flights. An airport spokesperson could not say how fog might affect operations on Thursday, according to ANP.

KLM said earlier in the day that they were “overwhelmed” by the fog. The situation was worse than the weather forecasts on Tuesday and during the overnight hours, a spokesperson told ANP. The weather institute KNMI issued a code yellow on Wednesday morning due to the mist, with visibility down to about 200 meters in some areas.

Indeed, the problem plagued Eindhoven Airport, where flight movements were halted starting at 6:30 a.m. due to weather. The issue was ongoing there into the afternoon, with at least one flight circling nearby in case the ground stop is lifted.

There were no arriving flights cancelled, but 12 were diverted to another airport, and seven more were delayed. Airlines cancelled two departures, delayed 11 more, and moved five departing flights to other airports in the region. Most of the diverted flights affected RyanAir passengers.

Even Rotterdam The Hague Airport, the country's third largest, was having problems. Seven flights either departed late, or were expected to, and four more inbound flights were delayed. The airport did not have to deal with any cancellations as of 1 p.m.

The national weather warning remained in effect in many areas. Flevoland, Friesland, Limburg, Noord-Brabant, Noord-Holland, Utrecht, Zeeland, and Zuid-Holland are the provinces that have been issued a code yellow until at least 2 p.m.