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
Travelers stuck outside of the Netherlands due to flights being halted or severely limited in the wake of the global coronavirus pandemic have a new option to get help to return home. A ten-million euro fund was launched on Monday to provide assistance to stranded fliers, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced on Monday.
Essentially, passengers will contribute 300 euros for their own repatriation if returning back from the European Union or 20 countries near the EU. The personal contribution rises to 900 euros for countries further away from the list of EU-adjacent countries.
The some 200 thousand Dutch tourists stuck abroad are running out of time and possibilities to get home as more and more countries close their borders and global air traffic gets closer to being shut down. Some 150 thousand people are at risk of getting stranded for a long time, the Telegraaf reports after speaking to travel agencies and airlines.
More and more countries are closing their borders due to the Covid-19 outbreak, resulting in more and more airlines canceling flights, leaving a large number of Dutch people stuck abroad. The general association of Dutch travel agencies ANVR thinks about 200 thousand Dutch who booked through a travel agency is stuck outside the Netherlands.
Airline Transavia received permission to organize a number of extra flights to pick up Dutch people stranded in Morocco, the Dutch embassy in Rabat said. Morocco canceled all flights due to the coronavirus Covid-19, leaving many people stranded, AD reports.
On Sunday afternoon, Transavia reported that at least one flight will bring passengers from Marrakech to Amsterdam on Monday. "We are preparing even more extra flights. As soon as these become available, they can also be booked directly via our website," the airline said to the newspaper.
Dozens of countries and territories implemented emergency measures to contain or prevent an outbreak of coronavirus in their lands on Saturday. While Dutch airline KLM said it would work to repatriate passengers, its subsidiary Transavia recommend people scheduled on cancelled flights quickly rebook their tickets to an available option if possible.
As a response, the Dutch government updated its travel advice to 14 different countries. A short description of these advisories follows this article.
The Netherlands released a stricter travel advisory for its citizens wanting to go to Italy. The update was due to the emergency measures Italian authorities put in place yesterday as an urgent means to fight the spread of coronavirus there. The new warning is the fourth updated advisory covering Italy, and it also affects the nations of San Marino and Vatican City.
Dutch budget airline Transavia said it would eliminate several flights to Italy from mid-March through April because of the coronavirus outbreak there. The spread of the new viral strain, linked to Covid-19, has resulted in decreased passenger demand to the European country, the airline stated.
The data of 80 thousand Transavia passengers leaked out after an e-mail inbox containing the data was breached, the Dutch low-cost flyer said on Monday. The data that was released includes passengers’ full names, date of birth, flight information, booking number, luggage purchase, and additionally requested services like wheelchair assistance.
The KLM subsidiary said the data was in a file in the mailbox, but it did not say why the years-old passenger information was being kept that way.
Air France-KLM expects that the consequences of the coronavirus outbreak in China will cost the company up to 200 million euros through to April. The Air France-KLM Group made this announcement as part of its year-end report, where the company took a 1.141 billion euro profit, down 264 million from a year earlier.
From the end of March, Transavia will charge passengers extra for large hand luggage, the company informed its travel partners. "If our passengers want to be sure that their trolley suitcase or backpack will go with them in the cabin, it will cost 10 to 30 euros extra per return flight," a spokesperson for Transavia said to the Telegraaf.
Dutch airline KLM transported a record number of 35.1 million passengers in 2019, an increase of almost 3 percent compared to the year before, according to figures the airline published on Thursday.
The fact that KLM was able to grow despite the fact that Schiphol has been at the limit of its allowed takeoffs and landings for some time, has to do with a higher occupancy rate, among other things. More seats were sold per plane, leading to KLM's planes being nearly 90 percent filled last year, NU.nl reports.
Flights from Schiphol to Barcelona departed again on Tuesday morning, after many flights to the Catalan city were canceled on Monday evening due to unrest. At 6:00 a.m. on Tuesday, a Transavia flight departed from Schiphol to Barcelona, followed by a Veuling flight an hour later. Other flights to the Spanish city for Tuesday are all still on schedule, according to the Schiphol website.
Budget airline Transavia weighed the passengers of five flights from Eindhoven Airport on Friday in an experiment to improve its fuel calculations and reduce its CO2 emissions, Eindhoven Airport said on Twitter.
"Through a more precise determination of the weight on board, the fuel calculation can be performed even more accurately, with the goal of less CO2 emissions", the airport said. Participation in the experiment is voluntary.
The amount of greenhouse gasses emitted by Dutch airlines increased significantly in the past five years. TUI Airlines Nederland saw its emissions increase by 74 percent, Corendon by 70 percent, Transavia by 33 percent, and KLM by 18 percent, NOS reports based on figures from the Dutch emissions authority NEa.
Transavia Airlines and Eindhoven Airport both performed poorly on new global rankings by AirHelp. The site for helping travelers claim compensation from airlines ranked Transavia as the 65th best airline in the world, out of a list of 72. And Eindhoven Airport was ranked the 130th best airport in the world, out of 132 airports.
KLM transported a record number of almost 34.2 million passengers last year, an increase of 4.5 percent compared to 2017. According to the Dutch airline, the increase was greatest in Europe and North and South America, ANP reports.
The occupancy rate - how many seats in the airplane was filled - increased by 0.7 percent to a record 89.1 percent. The Dutch airline's worldwide network expanded by four destinations to a total of 166 last year. The total KLM group, including Transavia Netherlands, welcomed 43 million passengers last year.
A Transavia pilot decided to make an emergency landing on Monday to get an aggressive passenger off the aircraft. Video taken inside the cabin of Transavia flight HV 6215 shows a struggle between several men near the cockpit, with several punches being thrown.
A fire on an airplane sent multiple fire engines responding to Eindhoven Airport on Tuesday. Firefighters quickly managed to get the fire under control and extinguish it, the fire department said on Twitter.
According to Omroep Brabant, the fire started on a Transavia plane that came from Seville. Just after the plane landed, the fire was noticed on one of the engines, according to the broadcaster.
The cause of the fire is not yet known. All passengers left the plane unharmed. No one was injured.
A Transavia flight from Gran Canaria to Schiphol had to make an emergency landing in Faro, Portugal on Tuesday night due to a stinky passenger. The stench was so bad that people became unwell, passengers said, according to RTL Nieuws.
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.
Dozens of flights to and from the Canary Islands had to land at other airports on Sunday due to severe storms on the islands. Heavy rains an winds over 100 kilometers per hour made it impossible for flights to land on or take off from the islands during the afternoon. Many hundreds of Dutch holiday makers were affected, AD reports.
Flightradar24 shows that many flights had to move to Morocco and Faro in Portugal. These detours affected hundreds of Dutch tourists using airlines TUI and Transavia, according to the newspaper.
A strike held by Transavia pilots at airports in the Netherlands ended at noon. Now the airline will focus on carrying out as many of the flights scheduled for Monday as possible, so that most passengers can still reach their destination today, Transavia CEO Mattijs ten Brink said according to ANP.
A Transavia flight from Dubai to Amsterdam was forced to make an unplanned landing in Vienna over the weekend, after a fight broke out on the plane over a passenger's flatulence. Four Dutch, two men and two women, were removed from the plane in Vienna. The two women plan to take the KLM subsidiary to court, the Telegraaf reports.
