schiphol

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.

Eight people fell ill for unknown reasons on board a Transavia flight from Schiphol to Antalya in Turkey on Sunday morning. The pilot made a precautionary landing in Vienna after people started fainting on board, NOS reports.

Passenger Hetty Roelofsen told NOS that the problems started when one passenger smelled something strange and fell ill. After that a total of eight people became unwell, spread over te plane. 

In the coming years Schiphol will remain very crowded during the morning and evening peak-times. If the airport wants to grow further, it will have to do so outside peak times, because no more takeoffs and landings can be fit into the peak times, various Dutch news sources including Haarlems Dagblad, Noordhollands Dagblad and RTL Nieuws report.

Transferring holiday flights to Lelystad airport will not fix this problem, the newspapers write based on several studies carried out on behalf of the Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management. 

A large power outage affecting parts of Amsterdam and Schiphol on Sunday also caused problems for chat service Telegram. Users across the world could not connect to the Telegram servers, NU.nl reports.

On Twitter Telegram reported that users in Europe, Russia, the Middle East and North Africa could have connection problems. The problem was resolved around 1:00 p.m. 

Schiphol airport expects a busy day on Monday due to spillover from a power outage on Sunday, people leaving on May vacation, and travelers returning from a long King's Day weekend. This will mean long lines at check-ins and passport controls. The airport calls on travelers to check in online and arrive at the airport earlier.

Employees of baggage- and cargo handlers Aviapartner, Menzies Aviation and Swissport are performing labor actions at Schiphol Airport on Friday. According to trade union FNV, travelers can expect to get their luggage with delay, but will not miss their flight, Het Parool reports.

The employees of these baggage handling companies are protesting against too heavy work loads and lagging salary development. FNV recently gave the companies an ultimatum.

In today's protest employees will follow each instruction carefully, slowly and to the letter. 

First responders at Schiphol Airport will soon be equipped with tourniquets that they will carry at all times. This precautionary measure is intended to prevent deaths through blood loss after an incident like an attack, a Schiphol spokesperson confirmed to ANP.

Tourniquets will form part of the standard uniform and equipment, in addition to defibrillators. 

The Dutch Safety Board launched an investigation into a near-miss between two planes at Schiphol airport last week. Two planes came dangerously close to hitting each other on Thursday. The safety board describes it as a "serious incident" on its website.

The pilot of a plane landing on runway 18C decided at the last moment not to land the plane after all and took it back into the air. Shortly before that another plane was given permission to take off on runway 24. "Because the extensions of both runways intersect, the planes came close together", the Safety Board writes. 

Airlines Corendon, TUI and easyJet had Schiphol in court on Thursday to try and force the airport to transfer its 2,700 unused 'time slots' for the past winter to the busy summer season. If the airport doesn't do so, half a million Dutch tourists may have to change their summer plans, the airlines say, the Telegraaf reports. 

Former PvdA State Secretary Dick Benschop will be the new CEO of Royal Schiphol Group, the board of the airport confirmed in a press release on Monday. He will succeed Jos Nijhuis on May 1st, ANP reports.

Benschop, 60, currently works at Royal Dutch Shell. Between 1998 and 2002 he was State Secretary of Foreign Affairs in the Kok II government.

Departing Schiphol CEO Jos Nijhuis is facing a storm of criticism from politicians after he said that his successor will be a man, otherwise Schiphol's board will have more women than men.