Aviation

A total of some 19 thousand Dutch people are still stranded abroad by restrictions implemented to curb the spread of coronavirus Covid-19 and looking for a way home, Minister Stef Blok of Foreign Affairs said to broadcaster NOS. The Ministry is doing "its best" to get them home, but that's not always easy, Blok said.

The Netherlands is currently discussing special landing rights with Panama, Suriname, Columbia and Peru, to send flights to repatriate Netherlands citizens

Government party D66 no longer wants airlines to decide for themselves whether to fly over conflict areas. Instead, the European aviation authority EASA should be in charge of that decision, according to D66 parliamentarians Jan Paternotte and Sjoerd Sjoerdsma. They will submit a motion to this effect during a debate on aviation and conflict zones on January 29th.

Almost 40 percent of passengers who fly through Schiphol do not fly further than 750 kilometers, Greenpeace reports based on research by consultancy and engineering firm Royal HaskoningDHV. According to Greenpeace, 750 kilometers is in many cases a distance that can easily be traveled by train or electric bus, saving a lot of CO2 emissions during these short flights' taxiing, takeoffs and landings.

Greenpeace is planning a protest against pollution caused by the aviation sector. And for the first time ever, the environmental organization is asking the public to help choose what type of protest must be held at either Schiphol, Lelystad airport, or everywhere in the country.

The Dutch government closed its airspace to all Boeing 737 MAX 8 aircraft following the second major crash involving that model in less than four months, killing 346 people. The decision was made on Tuesday by Cora van Nieuwenhuizen, the country's Minister of Infrastructure and Water Management, a spokesperson confirmed to NL Times. 

Ryanair refused an invitation from the Tweede Kamer, the lower house of Dutch parliament, to discuss safety and working conditions of aviation employees. No experts were invited, and the conversation is mainly aimed at nailing Ryanair to the pillory, the Irish budget airline said in a letter to the Parliamentary Committee for Infrastructure and Water Management, NOS reports. 

The people living around six Dutch airports joined forces to fight against what they consider the undesirable growth of aviation in the Netherlands. On Tuesday they established a national residents' council on aviation called LBBL, ANP reports.

Dutch scientist Henk Hesselink believes that airports with circular runways are the future of aviation. His years long research shows that circular runways have many benefits, including that they are less noisy and more environmental friendly, he explained to NOS.

Air France-KLM may give in to the French pilots' demand that the capacity growth within the airline cooperation be shared "more evenly", ANP reports. This would be detrimental to KLM, which is currently growing while Air France is shrinking, but new CEO Jean-Marc Janaillac is prepared to consider the demand.

A group of 18 families, frustrated by the Netherlands’ slow pace at investigating the crash of flight MH17, are calling on Prime Minister Mark Rutte to pressure Russia, Ukraine, and the United States into releasing raw radar images taken on the day of the crash. They are angered that Russia vetoed a proposal last July to try suspects in the MH17 explosion at the International Criminal Court, and that it will still take another six months before the Netherlands decides how to proceed with a prosecution, if any is to take place.

Air France-KLM joined the group of the five largest European airlines to lay out regulatory demands to the European Union. The airlines presented their demands as a part of a shared vision for a new EU aviation strategy.