Some 59 flights scheduled to depart on Wednesday from Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport were cancelled with wind gusts expected to top 110 kilometers per hour that day. All departures were scheduled to take off between 4 a.m. and 8 a.m.
A further 59 arrivals, set to land on Wednesday between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m. were also scrapped.
As of January 1st next year, all airports in the Schiphol Group will run entirely on sustainable energy generated in the Netherlands. The airport company signed a long-term agreement to this effect with electricity provider Eneco, ANP reports.
The Schiphol group covers the airports Schiphol, Eindhoven, Rotterdam and Lelystad. Together the airports use about 200 gigawatt hours of power every year. That's comparable to the consumption of 60 thousand households.
If go-slow actions at the airports in Eindhoven and Rotterdam this week don't push the Ministry of Defense to come up with a better collective agreement for Koninklijke Marechaussee officers, labor actions at Schiphol airport may be the next step, the Marechaussee unions announced, Het Parool reports.
The joint unions of Defense personnel are planning labor actions twice this week. Friday's action may result in longer than usual queues at the airports in Eindhoven and Rotterdam, ANP reports.
On Friday the Koninklijke Marechaussee will perform extra strict and thorough passport checks at these airports. This may cause longer queues and extra inconvenience for passengers. The Koninklijke Marechaussee is a policing force that works as part of the Dutch military and is responsible for border security, including at airports and harbors.
A Transavia Boeing 737 made an emergency landing at Schiphol on Wednesday afternoon. A so-called bird strike happened during the plane's takeoff from Rotterdam Airport
Schiphol Airport welcomed a record number of 55 million passengers in 2014, according to Schiphol Group CEO Jos Nijhuis. The preliminary figures, released Monday, demonstrate an increase of 4.6 percent. The CEO is also expecting a slight growth in both passenger numbers and freight in 2015 as well.
