Schiphol may not shrink from 500,000 to 460,000 flights per year for the time being. This has been determined by the preliminary relief judge in Haarlem. Just under 20 airlines, with KLM at the forefront, challenged the government’s decision to shrink in summary proceedings. They believe that the cabinet is acting recklessly by shrinking Schiphol. The court agrees with them and rules that the State has not gone through the correct procedure.
This means that as a result of this decision, Schiphol may not lower the maximum number of flights to 460,000 for the coming season.
Last summer, Minister Harbers of Infrastructure and Water Management decided that Schiphol should shrink to 440,000 flights per year from the end of this year due to noise nuisance, but came back to that in October. More time is needed for the contraction to be assessed by the European Commission. According to international rules, it must check whether all alternatives have been properly investigated or whether there is no other option than to limit the maximum number of flights.
Experiment
Harbers came up with a way to shrink Schiphol to 460,000 flights anyway. Brussels does not have to think anything of it as that intermediate step experiment is qualified. In the coming year, it will then be examined whether the nuisance will be reduced if the aircraft noise is spread differently.
The airlines, who were already strongly opposed to the reduction to 440,000 flights, claimed that the State and Schiphol violated the rules by calling the intermediate step to 460,000 flights an experiment and skipping the European assessment. Today the judge agrees with them.
Night flights
In the meantime, Schiphol has also started work on one of the alternatives to the contraction that will be investigated by the European Commission. Instead of fewer flights, the airport wants to ban all night flights, private jets and noisy aircraft from 2025. In addition, the ground reservation for an additional runway could be scrapped after decades.