FRIDAY, 24
MAY 2024 - 13:40
Netherlands forcing Schiphol to cut 5,000
overnight flights, ban loud aircraft at night
The Dutch
government is reducing the number of flights that can take off and land at
Schiphol Airport at night. Next year, the Amsterdam airport can allow 27,000
overnight flight movements, compared to 32,000 now, outgoing Minster Mark
Harbers of Infrastructure announced on Friday. The decision not only complies
with recent court rulings, but actually allows Schiphol to increase flight
movements by up to 17,500 per year.
The
government is also banning the loudest planes from using the airport overnight,
between 11 p.m. and 7 a.m. Schiphol must also make it more expensive for
passenger and cargo firms to operate noisy aircraft so that airlines are
encouraged to opt for a quieter fleet.
"As of
November 2024, KLM will voluntarily replace noisy aircraft at night with
quieter ones," the Infrastructure Ministry said in a statement. The
airline operates more flights than any other company at Schiphol. The Dutch
State also owns 9.1 percent of parent company Air France-KLM, and nearly 70
percent of the Schiphol Group.
These
measures are necessary to comply with a court ruling ordering the government to
do more to protect locals from airport-related nuisances. According to the
court, the government failed to enforce applicable noise pollution regulations
at the airport for years and “systematically” let the airport’s interests
outweigh those of local residents. Local residents are preparing a mass claim
of 3 billion euros against the Dutch State as a result of this ruling.
Notably, by
cutting overnight flights, Schiphol will be allowed more flight movements
during the day. Slot coordinator Hugo Thomassen of Airport Coordination
Netherlands recently explained that, according to international rules, giving
up a night flight creates five times more “noise space” at the edges of the day
and ten times as much during the day. It was previously agreed that half of the
“noise gain” should go to aviation itself.
By
scrapping 5,000 night flights, Schiphol’s total flight movements may increase
from 452,500 to 460,000 or 470,000 next year, growth of 2 to 4 percent. “I know
that a higher number of flight movements is a disappointment for many local
residents and that it can feel to them as if we are taking a different course,”
Harbers said on Friday.
"That
is not true. Our goal is unchanged, but we are making some adjustments to the
way we want to achieve it." KLM has been particularly vocal against the
Cabinet's lack of nuance when approaching the issue, saying that the airline
needs to be able to maintain its schedule and list of destinations to earn the
revenue needed to continue updating its fleet with newer, quieter, and more
fuel efficient aircraft.
The cuts to
the overnight schedule could be very problematic for Transavia, the low-cost
KLM subsidiary. The second-largest passenger service at Schiphol holds roughly
73 percent of takeoff and landing slots between the hours of midnight and 5
a.m., Transavia CEO Marcel de Nooijer said last month.
To keep
airfare lower, the company needs to operate each airplane about three times per
day. Combined with the cheaper price of overnight slots, Transavia said that
was how they manage to make flying affordable for people. TUI also shared
similar concerns in March.
Transavia
also said that one issue the Cabinet should anticipate is that more flight
movements will simply shift to just before and just after the overnight window,
making the situation very noisy during those times.
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