Larger aircraft and possible new providers of flights at Groningen Airport Eelde. Due to the chaos at Schiphol, the northern airport is more prominently visible to airlines, notes airport director Meiltje de Groot.
“It’s quite busy,” says De Groot. Not in terms of visitors, but in terms of interest. “Corendon is going to do an extra flight from our airport in the summer period. And a number of other companies have shown interest, we need to talk to them. Some of the flights will be for next year.”
It has been chaotic at Schiphol in recent weeks. Hour-long queues, staff on strike and canceled flights; large crowds and high work pressure are to blame for this. Compared to this, Groningen Airport Eelde (GAE) appears to be an oasis of tranquility. Today two planes arrive from Antalya and Gran Canaria, which will start the return flight within an hour.
According to De Groot, there are no personnel problems. “We haven’t had any trouble so far.” According to the director, this is because no external parties are involved in the handling of flights. “We do the handling ourselves: checking in, removing the bags from the plane and making sure the plane is handled properly. Those people are covered by the collective labor agreement, it’s not like they work through a handling company that has been hired.” These companies are widely criticized because of heavy work and the level of the salary that is in return.
De Groot does not expect any problems at Eelde either. “We have scheduled our people for next summer. If more flights are added, we will look to expand that, so we would like to know in time.”
Schiphol experienced serious problems during the May holiday, GAE offered to take over flights. It was not used. “It is very difficult to suddenly move flights”, De Groot also knows. Besides practical problems, such as a car parked at another airport, planning flights is a job of looking far ahead.
“Such an aircraft flies an entire route system. Rescheduling a flight is very complicated. That route is often planned a year in advance.” In addition, airlines were recently afraid of losing their lock – the right to take off and land – at Schiphol if they swerved. Agreements have now been made about this. And so the pressure on Eelde is gradually increasing. In addition, it is extra busy with bookings.
“What we now notice for our current destinations is that an incredible amount is being booked. There are companies that use slightly larger aircraft, which also happened during the May holiday,” says De Groot. “We see that there is really a lot of interest in flying from Groningen Airport Eelde. This may mean that extra flights will be added. We have been approached by a number of other companies, who do not normally fly with us, to enter into discussions.”