Monday there was a nice news in the FD about Schiphol. The airport will build a new arrival and departure hall so that it can handle 14 million additional passengers by 2032. At least, that was the original explanation, now Terminal South is announced as ‘sliding space’. A remarkably humble term. When I think of sliding space, I think of our attic back in the day, where we had some space along the sloping walls to stow our old stuff behind a few gnome doors. I do not think of major expansion plans with a construction project of more than 1 billion euros when I use that term.
The choice of words will probably have to do with the government’s announcement that the shrinkage of Schiphol is an inevitable step. After years of structural exceeding of the noise standards and the continuous nuisance for local residents, the government’s position was changed in June this year from tolerance to tackling it. The number of flights at Schiphol should decrease in the coming years. Just to clarify: that is not rising. They should be able to fathom these two opposing movements at an airport.
The term sliding space is also sensible in view of the nitrogen problem. There are various Natura 2000 areas around Schiphol, I can imagine that the farmers think something of this.
It’s also smart to keep the terminology humble, given last summer’s debacle. Many a traveler will have doubted the meaning of existence in those joyless lines far beyond the departure hall. If it is so expensive to organize the baggage handling at your own airport, it may be called miraculous when you announce an investment of more than a billion three seconds later. Although this is completely logical from an economic point of view, the blessing of scaling up lies precisely in squeezing every (human) part of the production process as much as possible.
The way our society is organized continues to be linked to a seemingly ineradicable pursuit of growth. The message that companies and industries should shrink is so shocking that it simply cannot be digested. Tell farmers to cut the livestock in half and the mess will break out. ‘Innovation is the way forward!’, it is then argued. The fact that innovation, in order to be profitable, must then be accompanied by an increase in scale, is a good thing.
For such an intelligent life form, man appears to be a particularly rigid being. Developing a new mindset is apparently too much to ask, despite all the damage our intemperance has caused. Growth is no longer synonymous with progress. How much more profit do companies really need? Is there a limit at all? Or do we only know how to set limits for refugees? Is our brain only then able to think about the natural limitations of our country?
The ladies and gentlemen of Schiphol will not be happy with it FD. Construction plans had so far been kept on hold and Hanne Buis, the couple’s chief operational officer, had announced last year that the plans were on hold. That turns out to be false; the decision for the new terminal had already been taken at that time. In a response to the article, Schiphol has now said it is ‘thinking about the concept and timing’ of the terminal. How nice, that means there is still room for input! Hereby: bring those building plans forward with great speed, start today if possible, and set up that terminal for the reception of asylum seekers. We don’t really have to do our best for those guys, there’s just a limit to what we can do, so such a modest sliding space is excellent.