In its odd assessment of “How to Win Friends and Influence People”, Royal Schiphol Group – the operators of Amsterdam Schiphol Airport – is increasing its airport usage fee charge.
The airport was planning to raise it by 12% but has decided to raise it to 14.8%. Typically the charge is passed onto airlines, which in turn, pass it onto the passenger as part of the passenger surcharge.
Royal Schiphol Group notes that this additional increase is necessary due to lost income in 2022 when there was less air traffic.
At the start of 2022, there were still some travel restrictions in place because of COVID-19, and airlines operated fewer flights than planned. Security staff shortages also led to a reduction in flights, but Schiphol has not included the estimated share of that in the calculation.
The staff shortages at the security companies at Schiphol were one of the reasons why there were fewer flights in 2022. Partly because of this, Schiphol imposed a limit on the number of departing travellers at certain points in 2022.
The airport charges that airlines pay to Schiphol are spent on facilities and services that the airlines make use of. This includes runway maintenance, security, maintenance in the terminal and cleaning.
The group argues that Schiphol’s airport charges are still competitive when compared to other international hubs.
In Quotes
Schiphol’s CFO Robert Carsouw said:
‘We’ve notified the airlines and understand that they’re not very pleased. At the same time, it’s necessary for the quality at Schiphol and for our financial position. It’s also how the legislation works. In good years we are not allowed to profit from airport charges and so in bad years we cannot afford any losses.’
He added:
‘To the best of our knowledge, we have calculated Schiphol’s share in the bad year of 2022 and, although not obliged, deducted it from the increase we are making. If we had not done that, the increase would have been higher.’ Inflation, which is significantly higher than during the consultation on airport charges in 2021, is not part of the settlement. Corrected for inflation and settlements the charge development since 2014 actually shows a decreasing trend.
Combined with upcoming cuts too
This, combined with incoming slot reductions is going to make Schiphol a lot more expensive to fly in and out for passengers. The airport has a limit of 280,645 flights in the 2024 summer season (31 March to 26 October 2024). That’s around 12,400 fewer flights than in the summer of 2023, which means slot pairs are going to vanish, thanks to government cuts.
This will result in fewer flights to the airport, with initially private and noisy jets targeted, but also new entrants to the Amsterdam market.
And there’s at least one that won’t get slots for the summer season if ACNL – JetBlue.
It seems that Royal Schiphol Group might want to spend some time reading a few more lines of “How to Win Friends and Influence People”, as others take action…
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