Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam and its owner – Royal Schiphol Group – have not had a good year, to put it mildly.
It’s still the subject of capacity caps and has had a change of CEO. All that leads to a loss of €28 million.
Good luck with that short of wait at Schiphol these days – Image, Economy Class and Beyond.
Here’s the exact headline provided by the airport group
“Today, 17 February 2023, Royal Schiphol Group publishes poor financial results for 2022. The underlying financial result of Schiphol Group amounted to a loss of 28 million euros despite a strong recovery in traffic. Upscaling issues have overshadowed the operational performance of Schiphol. To support recovery from the operational issues, Schiphol incurred extra costs of approximately 120 million euros.”
This is in the face of an increase of direct destinations served – from 296 to 313 (with 129 of those intercontinental) – making Schiphol the third best-connected hub airport in the world.
Traffic continues to increase, with 397,646 air transport movements. With passenger traffic increasing, cargo traffic was down with 18,340 cargo-only flights.
The total number of passengers at Royal Schiphol Group airports in the Netherlands increased by 110% to 60.8 million (2021: 28.9 million), with 52.5 million going via Schiphol.
In Quotes
Ruud Sondag, CEO of Royal Schiphol Group said:
“Never before in Schiphol’s history have we disappointed so many travellers and airlines as in 2022. Our efforts and hard work did not lead to the necessary improvements in the system and, as a result, we were not able to provide the service we wanted. 2022 will therefore go down as a bad chapter in our own history books. But it is also a chapter we will not forget, so that all new chapters we write will be better. We are working hard on this, and in 2022 we started to implement structural improvements. Because we have to do better. And I am convinced that we can.”
Wow. That’s blunt.
Last year proved that Schiphol (like a lot of European airports) were not ready in any sense of the term to scale up and welcome back the travelling public – leading to delays and restrictions. Whilst Schiphol has seen a recovery in passenger numbers, the airport will have to ready itself for another busy summer and have the staffing to support it.
In addition, the airport has more than a few other problems on the horizon – least of all, the announcement by the Dutch Government to cap the number of flight movements at Amsterdam Airport Schiphol to 440,000 as of November 2024.
That could put some serious pressure on the Dutch aviation hub.
Welcome to Economy Class and Beyond. Your no-nonsense guide to network news, honest reviews, in-depth coverage, unique research, as well as the humour and madness I only know how to deliver.
Follow me on Twitter at @EconomyBeyond for the latest updates, as well as Mastodon too! You can follow me on Instagram too!
Also, remember that we are part of the BoardingArea community, bringing you the latest frequent flyer news from around the world.
