The court in Amsterdam allowed Schiphol to shrink to 460,000 flights per year, while the preliminary relief judge previously put a stop to this. ‘Good news,’ says residents’ group RBV. ‘Disappointing’, says KLM. Schiphol, which cooperated with the State in this appeal, is satisfied, but also expects clarity from the minister about the ruling soon. After all, what does the rapid shrinkage of Schiphol actually mean?
It is easy to imagine that as a reader, but also as a resident of Schiphol, you can no longer see the wood for the trees. Why is Schiphol allowed to shrink now? Wasn’t that decision already made? Or, instead of a reduction in the number of flights, would there be a ban on night flights, private jets and the noisiest aircraft? You can read how it is here.
Minister Harbers of Infrastructure and Water Management decided last year that Schiphol should shrink from a maximum of 500,000 flights per year to 440,000 flights from the end of 2023. He wants aircraft nuisance to decrease and provide legal certainty to local residents who are driven crazy by the noise. The 500,000 flights have not been fixed in law for years.
And if something is not established by law, but is tolerated in this case, violations cannot be punished. For example, using an airstrip much more often than agreed. The reason why this has not been stipulated by law is because Schiphol has been given time since 2015 to get all permits in order, but is always sent back to the drawing board.
The size full
For Minister Harbers, after 8 years of tolerance, the measure was full: he decided that Schiphol had to shrink to 440,000 flights per year. According to Harbers, that is a number that both airlines and local residents could live with.
But for some of the local residents, the shrinkage does not go far enough and airlines are strongly opposed to the decision. Moreover, Harbers cannot take that independently. It must first be carefully investigated whether there are no alternatives, such as deploying more quieter aircraft.
Important destination
Schiphol is a very important destination for more than 100 airlines, which do not want their landing rights taken away just like that. That is why the European Commission must first consider the shrinkage.
It soon became clear that the end of 2023 was not feasible, so Harbers came up with a ruse with Schiphol’s approval: a provisionally smaller reduction to 460,000 flights could be introduced immediately without the intervention of Brussels. This is the so-called experimenter regulation. Airlines didn’t want to know about it and went to court to have Harbers’ goat trail banned, and successfully.
But that success was short-lived. Harbers appealed and won today. Schiphol may still shrink to 460,000 flights in the short term, and in the meantime, Brussels can investigate in detail whether the ‘major’ reduction to 440,000 flights is possible.
The article continues below the box.
What has the court ruled today?
The Human Environment and Transport Inspectorate (ILT) no longer has to sit on its hands if the noise rules are violated. After 8 years of tolerance, penalties can now be handed out if a certain runway is overused.
Harbers wants to experiment in the coming year by combining old and new noise regulations in order to achieve a better balance for local residents, Schiphol and the airlines. For example, new flight routes have been developed that pass over residential areas less often.
KLM, which together with at least 20 other airlines took the State to court earlier this year (and which initially won the case), calls the court’s ruling ‘disappointing’. KLM finds the decision unclear and does not know where it stands. Minister Harbers said in a response that clarity will follow in March next year.
Schiphol, which sided with the State in both the lawsuit and the appeal, wants the cabinet to provide clarity sooner: “We expect the State to provide further clarity about the number of flights within two months.” Without a concrete plan, both Schiphol and the airlines do not know how they will fill in the summer season of 2024.
Residents’ group Right to Protection against Aircraft Nuisance (RBV) was also a party to the appeal and calls the ruling ‘good news for all residents in the Schiphol region’.
The pilot union speaks of a ‘dead end that offers no guarantee for improvements for local residents’. “We have therefore previously called on the sector to look at how we can achieve the noise targets for local residents without it being harmful to employment and destinations for the Dutch. The aviation sector submitted a plan for this on 15 June.”
Night flights
Schiphol announced in April that it wanted to end all night flights and advocated a ban on private jet flights and the noisiest aircraft. The airport submitted these plans as an alternative to the reduction decision of 440,000 flights per year. KLM, foreign airlines, residents’ groups, environmental organizations and local governments also expressed their views on the shrinkage. All of these are now being studied by the cabinet.