About 2 million holidaymakers are affected by a temporary closure of Eindhoven Airport. “This is a bizarre plan.”
The travel industry was surprised on Wednesday by Defense’s plan to close Eindhoven Airport for five months in connection with the renovation of the runway. It is still unclear when this will happen. The ANVR estimates that approximately 10,000 flight movements need to be moved, a quarter of what is handled annually at the airport. This is good for about two million passengers.
‘This is bizarre’
“Eindhoven Airport is a very important airport for holidaymakers. A closure of five months is bizarre. It is essential that we have a good alternative in the event of a closure. Rotterdam, Maastricht and Schiphol will have to increase their capacity. Perhaps Lelystad Airport can temporarily function as an overflow,” says leader Frank Oostdam of travel association ANVR.
Eindhoven Airport has 6.9 million travelers annually and is the second largest airport in the Netherlands. A closure creates a problem for the airlines, who will then have to find accommodation elsewhere. But everything at Schiphol Airport is full in the early morning and there are also plans to shrink the national airport from 500,000 to 452,500 takeoffs and landings. “We will have to enter into discussions with airlines if the plan is concrete,” says a spokesperson for Eindhoven Airport. Schiphol has not yet responded to a request for comment.
May holiday
“This state of affairs is very strange, this cannot just happen, can it?” says foreman Arjan Kers of travel organization TUI. The market leader on the Dutch holiday market has an aircraft at the airport and will have to divert if Eindhoven were to actually close. It is not yet clear how many flights this would involve, but it is expected that it would concern the period February to June. This includes the May holidays.
Another major user of the airport, Transavia, does not yet want to respond. A Defense spokesperson also does not want to answer questions about what should happen to the holiday flights during the closure. According to Oostdam of the ANVR, it has ‘never happened’ that such a drastic measure has been taken for the maintenance of the runways. “It’s also quite long.”
TUI does not yet want to speculate on fallback options. However, Belgium is an obvious choice, because TUI Netherlands and Belgium are being merged. During the months of chaos at Schiphol in 2022, the airlines also had to move elsewhere. TUI then went to Liège. “The closure could have been communicated better. I am curious how Schiphol, as owner of Eindhoven Airport, views this,” says Kers. The Eindhoven Airport company uses the infrastructure of Eindhoven Airport, which is owned by Defense.