New Schiphol CEO finds ‘tired’ company and is critical of how airport handles staff | Economy

,,Good morning dear people, my name is Ruud Sondag and I also come to work here, so to speak.” With those disarming words, the new CEO starts the video message, which is really aimed at the people who work at Schiphol. Without criticizing or mentioning his predecessors, he clearly indicates that a new wind is blowing: ,,The past two years have been quite tumultuous, we can say. And that has taken its toll on many people. You notice that too. There is a certain fatigue. I’m going to try to give energy by supporting you.”

The CEO is critical of outsourcing tasks to external companies and repeatedly emphasizes that he sees it as his mission to do it ‘together’. “If you do something together, you will only be successful if you feel that other people are also interested in your problems. Whether that’s the schedules, clean workspaces, good coffee and that sort of thing. I have the idea that at Schiphol we have drifted a bit too far from distributing core activities to third parties and that we no longer realize ourselves like Schiphol: what is actually going on in that world? What do these people think is important?”

The airport has been struggling with long lines for months. Airlines also had to cancel flights because of the crowds. This is partly because Schiphol has a shortage of security guards. There is also an acute shortage of personnel in baggage handling.

Sondag wants to change that quickly and says he especially wants to discover when people like to work at Schiphol and when they go the extra mile: ,,I think it’s important that we start to understand – perhaps more than we did before – why people want to work here. We outsourced those people and outsourced those core activities and then things didn’t go well after that. Then you can’t say: ‘that’s no longer our job, that’s not our job’. I say ‘we are of it’. We really like it and will also resolve it with those parties.”

Sondag therefore wants to focus more explicitly on all staff who work at Schiphol. He refers to the security guards, cleaners and baggage handlers as an ‘extension of quality’ and wants to talk more with them. “That is necessary to make this huge job a success,” said the CEO, who gives himself a year for this job. “If we can’t do it in one year, we won’t be able to do it in four. I guarantee you, you have no more time and neither will I.”

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