Amsterdam Airport Schiphol


Amsterdam Airport Schiphol, known informally as Schiphol Airport, is the main international airport of the Netherlands, and is one of the major hubs for the SkyTeam airline alliance. It is located southwest of Amsterdam, in the municipality of Haarlemmermeer in the province of North Holland. It was the world's fifth busiest airport by international passenger traffic in 2024. With almost 72 million passengers in 2019, it is the third-busiest airport in Europe in terms of passenger volume and the busiest in Europe in terms of aircraft movements. With an annual cargo tonnage of 1.74 million, it is the 4th busiest in Europe. AMS covers a total area of of land. The airport is built on the single-terminal concept: one large terminal split into three departure halls.
Schiphol is the principal hub for KLM and its regional affiliate KLM Cityhopper, as well as for Martinair. The airport also serves as an operating base for Corendon Dutch Airlines, easyJet, Transavia, TUI fly Netherlands, and Vueling.
Schiphol opened on 16 September 1916 as a military airbase. The end of the First World War also saw the beginning of civilian use of Schiphol Airport and the airport eventually lost its military role completely. By 1940, Schiphol had four asphalt runways at 45-degree angles. The airport was captured by the German military that same year and renamed Fliegerhorst Schiphol. The airport was destroyed through bombing but at the end of the war, the airfield was soon rebuilt. In 1949, it was decided that Schiphol was to become the primary airport of the Netherlands. Schiphol Airport was voted the Best Airport in Western Europe in 2020.

Etymology

The name Sciphol appears in an official document from 1447. According to the airport's media department, the name of Schiphol might have several origins, all contested:
  1. As graveyard of ships; the Haarlemmermeer was a big, wild water mass, where many ships found their demise.
  2. As ship-haul, where ships were transferred from one water to another.
  3. As name of a coppice in marshy land. In the Gothic language, it indicated an area of low-lying wetland where wood could be extracted. However, Gothic has never been spoken in the Netherlands.

    Description

Schiphol Airport ranked as Europe's third busiest and the world's eleventh busiest by total passenger traffic in 2017. It also ranks as the world's fifth busiest by international passenger traffic and the world's sixteenth busiest for cargo tonnage. A record 71,706,999 passengers passed through the airport in 2019. Schiphol's main competitors in terms of passenger traffic and cargo throughput are London Heathrow, Frankfurt, Madrid, Paris–Charles de Gaulle and Istanbul.
In 2019, 70.5% of passengers using the airport flew to and from Europe, 10.6% to and from North America and 10.1% to and from Asia; cargo volume was mainly between Schiphol and Asia and North America. In 2019, 102 carriers provided a total of 332 destinations on a regular basis. As of 2024, Amsterdam Airport Schiphol handled over 66.8 million passengers annually, reinforcing its status as one of Europe's largest aviation hubs.
The airport is built as one large terminal, split into three departure halls, which connect again once airside. The most recent of these was completed in 1994 and expanded in 2007 with a new section, called Terminal 4, although it is not considered a separate building. A new pier is to be opened in 2019 with a terminal extension planned to be operational by 2023. Plans for further terminal and gate expansion exist, including the construction of a separate new terminal between the Zwanenburgbaan and Polderbaan runways that would end the one-terminal concept.
Because of intense traffic and high landing fees, some low-cost carriers decided to move their flights to smaller airports, such as Rotterdam The Hague Airport and Eindhoven Airport. Many low-cost carriers, such as EasyJet and Ryanair, however, continue to operate at Schiphol, using the low-cost H pier. In 2015, Lelystad Airport was allowed to expand, aimed at accommodating some of the low-cost and leisure flights currently operating out of Schiphol, eventually taking up to 45,000 flights a year.
To combat complaints from the community in Schiphol, Amsterdam Airport is advocating the prohibition of private jets, with the aim of minimizing noise and environmental pollution. The airport also intends to restrict takeoffs between midnight and 6 a.m. and landings between midnight and 5 a.m.

History

Early years

Before 1852, the entire polder of Haarlemmermeer in which the airport lies was a large lake with some shallow areas. There are multiple stories of how the place got its name. The most popular story is that in the shallow waters, sudden violent storms could claim many ships. Winds were particularly strong in the Schiphol area since the prevailing wind direction is from the southwest, and Schiphol lies in the northeastern corner of the lake. In English, schiphol translates to 'ship hole', a reference to many ships supposedly lost in the lake. When the lake was reclaimed, however, no shipwrecks were found. Another possible origin of the name is the word scheepshaal. A scheepshaal is a ditch or small canal in which ships would be towed from one lake to another. A third explanation would be that the name is derived from the words schip hol. This is a low-lying area of land from where wood would be obtained to build ships.
After the lake was dredged in the mid-1800s, a fortification named Fort Schiphol was built in the area which was part of the Stelling van Amsterdam defence works.
Schiphol opened on 16 September 1916 as a military airbase, with a few barracks and a field serving as platform and runways. When civil aircraft started to use the field, it was often called Schiphol-les-bains. The Fokker aircraft manufacturer started a factory near Schiphol airport in 1919. The end of the First World War also saw the beginning of civilian use of Schiphol Airport and the airport eventually lost its military role completely.
By 1940, Schiphol had four asphalt runways at 45-degree angles, all or less. One was extended to become today's runway 04/22; two others crossed that runway at. The airport was captured by the German military that same year and renamed Fliegerhorst Schiphol. A large number of anti-aircraft defences were installed in the vicinity of the airport and fake decoy airfields were constructed in the vicinity near Bennebroek, Vijfhuizen, and Vogelenzang to try to confuse Allied bombers. A railway connection was also built. Despite these defences, the airfield was still bombed intensively; an exceptionally heavy attack on 13 December 1943 caused so much damage that it rendered the airfield unusable as an active base. After that, it served only as an emergency landing field, until the Germans themselves destroyed the remnants of the airfield at the start of Operation Market Garden. At the end of the war, the airfield was quickly restored: the first aircraft, a Douglas DC-3, landed on 8 July 1945.
A new terminal building was completed in 1949 and it was decided that Schiphol was to become the primary airport of the Netherlands. The expansion came at the cost of a small town called Rijk, which was demolished to make room for the growing airport. The name of this town is remembered in the name of the present Schiphol-Rijk industrial estate. In 1967, Schiphol expanded even further with a new terminal area at its current location. Most of the 1967 terminal is still in use today, as are parts of the original piers. Dutch designer Benno Wissing created signage for Schiphol Airport, well known for its clear writing and thorough colour-coding; to avoid confusion, he prohibited any other signage in the shades of yellow and green used. The new terminal building replaced the older facilities once located on what is now the east side of the airport. The A-pier of the airport was modified in 1970 to allow Boeing 747 aircraft to use the boarding gates. A new pier opened in 1977, dedicated to handling wide-body aircraft. The first railway station at the airport followed in 1978.

Development since the 1990s

The construction of a new air traffic control tower was completed in 1991 as the existing tower could no longer oversee all of the airport as it was further expanded. Departure Hall 3 was added to the terminal in 1993, as was another pier, G-pier. New wayfinding signage was designed that year as well by Paul Mijksenaar. A sixth runway was completed at quite some distance west of the rest of airport in 2003 and was nicknamed the Polderbaan, with the connecting taxiway bridge crossing the A5 motorway. The distance of this runway means that taxiing to and from this runway can take between 10 and 20 minutes. It also required the construction of an additional air traffic control tower as the primary tower is too far away to oversee this part of the airfield.
On 25 February 2005, a diamond robbery occurred at Schiphol's cargo terminal. The robbers used a stolen KLM van to gain airside access. The estimated value of the stones was around 75 million euros, making it one of the largest diamond robberies ever.
Later in 2005, a fire broke out at the airport's detention centre, killing 11 people and injuring 15. The complex was holding 350 people at the time of the incident. Results from the investigation almost one year later showed that fire safety precautions were not in force. A national outrage resulted in the resignation of Justice Minister Piet Hein Donner and Mayor Hartog of Haarlemmermeer. Spatial Planning Minister Sybilla Dekker resigned as well because she bore responsibility for safety failings cited in the report.
In the summer of 2022, the airport suffered the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on commercial air transport. It experienced extraordinarily long delays and a large number of cancelled flights, which led to a recession of air traffic and subsequently to a shortage of security staff and a walkout of baggage handlers. Queues for security check-in were reported to last for 5 hours, and many passengers missed their flights. The CEO of Schiphol Group, Dick Benschop, was forced to resign.
In 2024, Schiphol experienced substantial growth, with an 8% increase in passenger traffic and an 8.2% rise in cargo volume compared to 2023. This surge prompted Schiphol Group to announce a €6 billion infrastructure investment plan covering the 2024–2029 period. Key projects include the renovation of Pier C, an overhaul of the baggage handling system, enhancements to climate-control systems, and the construction of additional aircraft stands and taxiways. The airport is also developing a new Pier A, scheduled to open in 2027.