Schiphol wants to ban all night flights, ban private jets and no more noisy cargo planes in two years’ time at the latest. The reservation of the land for the second Kaag runway will be scrapped. Schiphol director Ruud Sondag believes that these measures are necessary for the airport to become quieter and cleaner more quickly.
From 2025, no aircraft should be allowed to take off between 00:00 and 06:00. Landing aircraft are then no longer welcome between 00:00 and 05:00. That would mean that there are 10,000 fewer night flights per year. Schiphol wants to limit the shift to the ‘edges of the night’, i.e. just before midnight or in the early morning.
Flights by private planes and small business traffic must also come to an end. According to the airport, these flights cause a disproportionate amount of noise pollution and CO2 emissions per passenger. 30 to 50 percent of private jets fly to destinations such as Ibiza, Cannes and Innsbruck, which are also accessible by scheduled flights. The police and trauma helicopters and the Coast Guard remain welcome.
No second Kaagbaan
Schiphol will ask the government to cancel the reservation for the second Kaagbaan. Land has been reserved for this runway at Rozenburg, Rijsenhout and Schiphol-Rijk. For Rijsenhout that job reservation hangs like a dark cloud over the village. Rijsenhout is aging and due to Schiphol’s noise regulations, it is almost impossible to build.
Roar and emissions
To reduce noise nuisance, Schiphol wants to take a stricter approach to noisy aircraft by gradually tightening the existing standards for aircraft that are allowed to land and depart at Schiphol. This mainly concerns cargo aircraft of the Boeing 747-400 type: old planes which keep the area around Schiphol awake with a lot of roar and emissions.
The measures will apply no later than 2025-2026. According to Schiphol, the number of people seriously annoyed around the airport will fall by about 17,500 (16 percent) and the number of people living in the area with serious sleep disturbance will fall by about 13,000 (54 percent).