Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport will again reintroduce passenger caps in April and May. It will continue its recruitment drive for the forthcoming summer peak season but the move is aimed to alleviate pressure on infrastructure at the busiest times of the day.
This news follows last month’s announcement by the airport’s interim CEO, Ruud Sondag, in which he had stated that there would be no capacity limits on the spring holidays. ITTN had earlier reported on this news, in which the Schiphol management had spoken of plans to lift all caps from March 26.
However, according to the latest developments, it is understood that the airport will impose a cap that will reduce the airport’s daily passenger throughput by around 5,000 departing passengers. The airport is hoping to only implement the reduction cap during the hours of 06:00 and 13:00 daily for most of the period affected.
This reduction is expected to affect a small number of passengers – about 5 % of passengers that would normally be due to use the airport between those hours.
According an announcement released on its website: “The average number of daily departing passengers will increase by 65% from 40,000 last winter period to 66,000 during the May holiday. On peak days during the May holiday, the number of departing passengers will be well above 70,000. Schiphol believes a five per cent easing of the busy morning peak is needed to reduce the risk of unacceptable delays for travellers at check-in, security check and passport control.”
It is reported that Schiphol will implement what it describes as “an extra safety margin of 5%” from the first week of April. The cap is likely to remain in place throughout April until May 14th. The spring school holidays start across the Netherlands on April 29th and end on May 7th.
