The Dutch government’s plan to reduce traffic at Schiphol Airport has just been blocked by a court…
In this post:
Schiphol Airport can’t reduce flight cap
In June 2022, the Dutch government announced plans to reduce the annual flight cap at Schiphol Airport. For context, the airport can currently accommodate up to 500,000 flights per year.
Prior to this announcement, the plan was for the airport to grow and eventually accommodate 540,000 flights per year. Meanwhile the new plan called for traffic at the airport to be reduced to 440,000 flights annually.
This change was supposed to take effect as of late 2023, and was justified on environmental grounds. Obviously this came as quite a shock to airlines with a big presence at the country’s biggest airport, given that it would lead to them having to radically alter their business plans.
Major airlines, including KLM, Delta, and EasyJet, took the government to court in recent weeks, arguing that this change would harm the Dutch economy and the traveling public. KLM argued that it had made significant investments in the airport and its future fleet, based on the previously agreed upon flight cap.
The Noord Holland District Court has issued a ruling on Wednesday, and has sided with airlines. The court has ruled that the government “did not follow the correct procedure,” as it didn’t follow European Union rules that require consulting stakeholders, which includes airlines. Rather the government just unilaterally made this decision.
Let’s see how this plays out
Airlines are of course applauding this court decision, stating that they can take into account environmental impact without greatly reducing the number of flights. For example, here’s what Delta’s EVP of External Affairs, Peter Carter, had to say about this decision:
“Delta believes that it is possible to balance sustainability priorities with passengers’ desire to travel and connect with people across the world – something we have demonstrated through a vigorous commitment to fleet renewal and other practices to help decarbonize our operations and reduce noise. The court’s decision is the right one, safeguarding a future for Schiphol.”
Best I can tell, it doesn’t seem like a further flight cap is necessarily off the table, but rather that a more substantial consultation process would need to take place between stakeholders.
Personally I’m happy to see this decision from the Dutch court. I can appreciate the importance of environmental considerations, but just artificially creating a flight cap doesn’t seem like it’ll do much to help with environmentalism, as it’ll just cause people to route through other hubs.
Just this week, Schiphol Airport announced plans to add a curfew and ban private jets. That made sense in the context of a lower flight cap — if the airport is going to shrink, adding a curfew and banning private jets is a logical place to start. However, with this latest update, I suspect this will no longer be a priority.
Bottom line
The Dutch government’s plan to reduce flights at Schiphol Airport has been rejected by a court, after airlines sued. For now this plan has been rejected because the government didn’t follow the correct procedure, so only time will tell if this is still pursued. It at least means that this won’t be implemented in late 2023.
This still seems to me like a poorly thought out plan, so I’m happy to see this development.
What do you make of a Dutch court blocking the “green” flight cap?
"artificially creating a flight cap doesn’t seem like it’ll do much to help with environmentalism, as it’ll just cause people to route through other hubs."
I call this the "If I didn't steal it, someone else would" argument - "If we do the right thing, someone else would do the wrong thing."
ALL these hubs need to cut back.
What exactly do you think the future of our planet looks like? We are already certain...
"artificially creating a flight cap doesn’t seem like it’ll do much to help with environmentalism, as it’ll just cause people to route through other hubs."
I call this the "If I didn't steal it, someone else would" argument - "If we do the right thing, someone else would do the wrong thing."
ALL these hubs need to cut back.
What exactly do you think the future of our planet looks like? We are already certain to hit +2ºC even if we hit our ambitious goals, and this article is a great example of why we won't come close to those.
The last time CO2 levels were this high, sea levels were ten *meters* higher than today. And yet even the slightest mitigation is met by impassioned but bogus arguments.
It is to weep.
The Netherlands is perfect to reduce flights because it is so well connected and integrated into European high-speed rail which Americans often forget because for some reason in 2023 they still don't understand rail! And we're not talking about having no flights at all, but the future if we truly care about the environment is less flights. Ben you keep saying that it will harm just the Netherlands if nowhere else doesn't reduce flights, but...
The Netherlands is perfect to reduce flights because it is so well connected and integrated into European high-speed rail which Americans often forget because for some reason in 2023 they still don't understand rail! And we're not talking about having no flights at all, but the future if we truly care about the environment is less flights. Ben you keep saying that it will harm just the Netherlands if nowhere else doesn't reduce flights, but we have to start somewhere. Also often governments look to examples, if this was successful and workable, other countries could fall suit. The reality is the long term future of long-distance travel in Europe is rail not planes. It's why we're seeing a resurgence in Sleeper trains, the Austrian run NightJet across Europe is frequently booked up and numerous new Sleeper train companies are starting up from Midnight Train to European Sleeper amongst others. I think reducing flights is possible if short-haul is focused on, while maintaining long-haul links as that can't be served by other modes such as rail as easily
Isn't it funny how the people calling the shots on the Green Agenda (quote unquote) don't take the train? Or even fly commercial?
I never understood why airlines moved away from three shorthaul widebody services per day in the 1980/90 to about six services per day with regional jets now. This not only is less environmental friendly, it also congests the airports and causes delays.
Really stupid question. Not very bright
Waiting for @TravellinPenis to sprout that it's all a Trump, right-wing, MAGA conspiracy with the Netherlands court to thwart the green agenda. He always 'manages' to bring politics and virtue-signalling into every aviation topic. EVERY TOPIC.
Have we ever in history seen such a concerted effort to disadvantage a group of nations? China, India, and even Russia must be laughing at us.
I find it interesting anyway where the government or green peace found out that Schiphol is having noise disturbance for the people living in the surroundings. I live right next to Schiphol, and they never knocked on our door for our opinion. A lot of expats and people in our area are living here because of the central location of Schiphol.
People that are against Schiphol don’t even live near Schiphol.
Good to see, though it's probably only temporary relief.
Possibly only temporary relief, as you say. But at least it shows arrogant politicians they're not the top dogs they imagine themselves to be.
The NL government is screwing KLM
Paris CDG was built on farmland and still has plenty of room to expand
Schiphol has a strange runway layout and is constantly plagued with wind issues and noise abatement regulations.
They could do what Chicago Ohare did and realign all the runways.
Meanwhile CDG has 4 parallel runways with simultaneous landings and take off, and rarely affected by weather. There are also 3 control towers.
The Problem is the French staff are always either on strike or rioting.
When you say French staff, you do realise AF hasn’t had a strike in years.
And whilst ignoring all the strikes in the Netherlands including public transport workers and at a time farmers blocked access to schiphol.
@Icarus they were on strike last week. May not have been AF staff but the airport was shut down.
Won't they just "consult" the airlines and make the same decision in 6-12 months?