While no one expects Europe’s airports to remain as dysfunctional as they have been this summer, there are serious questions about the future status of two of the largest, London’s Heathrow and Amsterdam’s Schiphol, both of which are currently restricting flights and passenger loads.
Dutch officials were already thinking of capping flights at Schiphol for environmental reasons before the drama began, and have had on-again off-again plans to divert some traffic to a secondary field to be developed at Lelyveld, also the subject of environmental questions.
Heathrow’s issues are mainly different, although all airports worry these days about carbon capping. Airlines serving Heathrow have been asked to live for now with a daily limit of 100,000 passengers a day, at least until September 11, mainly because of overwhelmed security and baggage handling.
It’s led British Air, the dominant carrier, to suspend sales of tickets for short-haul flights. BA has now confirmed that it may need to cut long-haul flights as well, especially if, as expected, the capping extends past September. And there’s not much chance of relief at London’s other major airports, which are having similar issues.
While airlines have generally blamed the airports, the airports have responded that hiring ground handling staff is done by the airlines, and blames them. At least one airline agrees: Ryanair, most of whose London flights use Stansted, is flying its full complement and more, as passengers bumped elsewhere turn to them. A senior Ryanair official chided the other airlines for not being ready for the summer, telling Bloomberg News that “The time to hire for this summer was last October… This isn’t like running a warehouse where you can just get people, they’ve got to be part of a training process.”
Heathrow and Schiphol have one major factor in common besides size: They serve a key role as transfer airports for travelers arriving in Europe from North America and other areas and continuing on to cities without direct service. The same process works in reverse, and Amsterdam has, over the years, consciously developed that role for its airport.
One of the earlier versions of the plan to develop Lelyveld, in fact, involved pushing short-haul and discount airlines to operate from there, saving slots at Schiphol for the more profitable long-haul and transfer flights.
But, with a cap at Schiphol starting next year and limiting flights for the next several years to about 440,000 a year, down from around 500,000, Schiphol is known for relatively low fees for airlines, an edge over Heathrow, and for its great connections, but the government has now flight taxes and begun to pressure airlines to think carefully about which flights will have to go. Between more limited seats and higher fees, Amsterdam’s value as a hub will be impacted.
