Groningen Airport Eelde will be used more often as a fallback and training location for military operations. According to State Secretary Gijs Tuinman of Defense, the most important agreements on this matter have now been legally recorded in the new airport decision.
Yesterday, practice was held at Schiphol with F35s and tanker aircraft. The goal: to test whether the aircraft can operate flexibly from different locations in crisis situations. The aircraft are practicing while normal air traffic at the most important civil airport in the Netherlands continues.
“The aircraft take off from a military base, perform a mission and land at civilian airports for maintenance and new assignments. Every flight requires careful maintenance,” the State Secretary says in the NPO Radio 1 program Sven on 1. “With the F-35, this is crucial: even a small defect can affect the mission.”
Although the current exercises focus on Schiphol, Defense also works closely with regional airports such as Groningen Airport Eelde. “Our aircraft must be able to spread out when a military base is under pressure,” Tuinman explains. “We have made agreements with all airports of national importance.”
Combat aircraft such as the F-35s cannot land at Eelde, but according to Tuinman, transport and training aircraft can be deployed there almost indefinitely, provided they are within the permitted space. “The point is that normal air traffic can continue as usual. We have already arranged this very well with Groningen Airport Eelde.”
The State Secretary emphasizes that this concerns incidental military shared use, not the militarization of civilian airports. “We regulate this through airport decisions, which state, among other things, how often aircraft may take off and land, and how much noise may be made. In this way we prepare ourselves for a situation where it is necessary.”
This week’s exercise follows international guidelines from NATO. “It is important that our air force remains agile and can operate in different locations. Ukraine shows that the use of all available airfields can be strategic. In the Netherlands we have the advantage of well-equipped airports, but experience is essential.”
