Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport is to continue restricting passenger numbers throughout September and October.
The Netherlands’ hub airport has been limiting the number of departing passengers during July and August. This will now continue into the autumn after Schiphol consulted with its airlines.
Schiphol will limit departing passengers to 67,500 per day in September and then increase the cap to 69,500 people daily in October.
These numbers are below this month’s daily passenger cap of 72,500 people, which the airport explained was due to the “seasonal effect” of people wearing extra clothes, such as coats, as the weather cools, which increases the time to pass through check-in and security.
“Schiphol has informed airlines and travel organisations that in and around the two weeks of the autumn holidays, the expectation is that there will be an average of 3,500 too many local departing passengers,” said the airport in a statement.
“The purpose of setting a maximum is to ensure the safety of passengers and employees, and to create a reliable process at the airport. All efforts are focused on keeping the consequences for travellers to a minimum.”
Schiphol added that continuing to limit passenger numbers in the autumn would allow the airport to better cope with delayed flights and other disruption.
“Virtually all parties at the airport are understaffed, and any unexpected changes can result in delays to the entire airport process at Schiphol,” said the airport. “This has been the subject of extensive consultation with airlines in the recent period.”
The airport said that the number of available security guards was continuing to increase, with 200 new staff ready to be deployed from August and another 80 recruits set to start in October. Schiphol is also trying to “optimise the flow” in the terminal through the use of security “coaches”.