The continuing chaos at Schiphol due to major staff shortages in security and mismanagement by the management has once again put the airport in the red. Last year, Schiphol made a loss of 28 million euros. Attempts to repair the mess in the departure halls alone cost the airport an extra 120 million euros.
Schiphol could have benefited from the strong recovery in air traffic, but was not in time to recognize the major problems that the airport could have seen coming. Trade unions, politicians and the employees themselves warned well in advance of chaos if Schiphol did not address the staff shortages.
When announcing the annual figures for 2021, when Schiphol was still losing 287 million euros due to the corona crisis, then director Dick Benschop no problem about bulging departure halls, a staff shortage and a surplus of travelers.
“There will be a few bottlenecks at the most,” Benschop predicted in February last year. Later in the autumn, he left as CEO because of the mismanagement at Schiphol.
His successor, interim director Ruud Sondag, has also not yet succeeded in turning the tide: “Never before in the history of Schiphol have we disappointed so many travelers and airlines as in 2022. The commitment and hard work of everyone at Schiphol did not lead to the necessary improvements in the system, which meant that we were unable to offer the service we wanted.”
Bad chapter
“2022 will go down in our history books as a bad chapter. A chapter that we will not forget and use to perform better from now on. We are working hard on that. In 2022 we started implementing structural improvements. Because we have to do better And I’m convinced we can do that,” said Sondag.
After the weekend, Schiphol will announce how many restrictions will apply during the upcoming May holiday. The airport actually wanted to stop setting limits to the number of travelers in the departure hall from the end of March, but due to staff shortages at the handling companies, it cannot always handle the crowds during the May holidays.