The airlines - and network carrier KLM in particular - that fly from Schiphol have extensive networks that connect the Netherlands and the Randstad conurbation with all major centres in Europe and the rest of the world. These connections ensure that the Netherlands and the Randstad are linked up with all major hubs that are part of the European and global economy. In the globalising economy it is of vital importance for our continued prosperity that the Randstad continues to enjoy a direct connection with the world’s major economic regions and that it remains an attractive business location for international and foreign companies. Schiphol is also an important gateway for tourists travelling to Amsterdam, the Netherlands and the rest of Europe. The network of economic activities located at the airport and within its environs constitutes the major source of employment for the northern section of the Randstad area.
In respect of the support and accommodation of this extensive network, Schiphol offers a well-equipped airport that can compete with the other European hubs in terms of ‘dependable capacity’ and in offering a good transfer product at a competitive price. We wish to secure this state of affairs in the future too, which is why we have set out below the details of the way in which we believe that we can achieve this.
Passenger numbers increase to 85 million
The aviation sector expects the passenger market to grow by about 4-5% per annum for the next few years. However, in the longer term this growth is expected to level off to about 2.5 % per annum. In this context, the rise of megahubs such as Dubai, the growth of regional airports and the putting into service of new, very large planes such as the A380 will not to any great extent effect the level of growth at Schiphol. Within the total market, the level of competition in the transfer segment will increase. The implementation of new business models and the introduction of new plane types mean that the volume of point-to-point traffic will increase in both Europe and the intercontinental sector. Falling levels of Dutch population growth mean that growth in the domestic market will mainly come from an increasing ‘propensity to fly’. Under this trend, people living in the Netherlands will increasingly use the plane for their business trips, holidays abroad and for visiting family and friends. Additionally, the growing markets in Eastern Europe and Asia mean that the number of foreign travellers flying to Schiphol will increase as well. As a result, this so-called ‘destination market’ will become an increasingly important growth factor.
The precise effects of targeted, environmentally related government levies and pricing measures relating to noise and emission levels etc. is still unclear. If these measures are adopted throughout Europe or indeed globally, Schiphol’s competitive position will be effected less than if they are only implemented at a national and/or local level.
Taking all factors into account, for the long term (until 2025) we are expecting annual market demand to be 80 to 85 million passengers and about 3.5 million tonnes of freight. This corresponds to 600,000 - 650,000 air transport movements a year.
When the decision was taken to construct the new Runway 18R-36L, the number of movements was forecasted to increase to about 600,000 a year. Accordingly, accommodating a market that will be significantly larger than this volume will require the creation of additional capacity, either at Schiphol or at other airports in the Netherlands.
Five cornerstones for the sustainable development of the main port
In order to be able to maintain Schiphol’s position as a successful hub, we have formulated five cornerstones for the sustainable development of the main port.
First cornerstone: a healthy market
Volume, transfer and connectivity
Thanks to the extensive KLM network and to the many foreign airlines that have made our airport an integral part of their network, Amsterdam Airport Schiphol can offer an extraordinarily attractive intercontinental and European transportation product. In size and range of products and services offered, this network even exceeds that offered by London Heathrow and is on a par with that of Paris. Only Frankfurt offers an even more extensive network.
The ability to maintain a network of such scope requires a certain volume of traffic. The Dutch domestic market is too small to support Schiphol’s extensive intercontinental network, which is why transfer business constitutes such an important part (i.e. more than 40 percent) of total volume. At Schiphol, transfer is handled almost exclusively by KLM, whose flight schedule means that more than 125,000 ‘city pairs’ are connected via Schiphol every week. This provides the Netherlands with an excellent network of connections with the rest of the world.
Its strong position in the European market and the principle that “(transportation) business attracts business” means that other airlines find Amsterdam Airport Schiphol an attractive proposition too. They connect Schiphol, either via their hub or directly, to some of the same - and to some additional - destinations. Healthy competition between airlines ensures that the airlines at Schiphol continue to compete on price and other factors, and that the number of destinations and frequency can be increased. In the interest of our users, we will endeavour to continue to offer a varied palette of airlines that fly to all major European and intercontinental destinations.
Selectivity: from volume to quality
In the short term, the airport will already be coming up against a number of capacity limits imposed by the existing environmental regulations. During the planning period, runway usage will have to be adjusted in order to be able to comply with the increasing demand for dependable capacity. In our Long Term Vision, we have assumed that source measures, environmentally selective runway usage, air fare differentiation and effective operational measures will allow us to grow within the equivalence requirements imposed on this growth by the environmental regulations. One important aspect of this is the shift towards selective growth.
This is because the lack of available noise capacity requires a continual weighing-up and prioritisation of traffic segments that can be served from Schiphol in the future. We intend to primarily reserve this scarce capacity for those segments that help to strengthen the ‘main port network’. This term refers to the wide range of direct and indirect connections to major economic destinations in Europe and the rest of the world. This network ensures that the region remains attractive as a location for head offices and international corporations. In so far as international legislation permits, we will give priority to the hub carrier KLM and to those airlines that help to strengthen this main port network.
Schiphol Group advocates giving the major European hubs greater leeway to give priority to slots for flights that contribute to an improvement and strengthening of the intercontinental network, to the commercial European network and to healthy competition on flights to the most important destinations. We believe that these slots should be assigned a higher priority than slots for destinations that add less value to the network and/or that are already very frequently served. Lower priority should also be assigned to holiday destinations that can just as easily be served from other Dutch airports. So far, European legislation has prohibited such selectivity, but it is a principle that is gaining more and more support from the other major hubs.
Relocation of traffic not tied to main port
The great importance of transfer for the intercontinental network means that all traffic for which Schiphol fulfils a major transfer function should not be considered for relocation to other airports. This applies not only to large planes or long distance flights but also to smaller volume traffic that fulfils an important feeder (i.e. supply) function in respect of intercontinental flights. At a number of major European business destinations, point-to-point traffic too makes a major contribution to the main port network. Accordingly, this segment too has earned a permanent place at our airport. A further point is that the majority of freight traffic is interlinked with intercontinental passenger traffic in such a way that it must also be accommodated at Schiphol. In contrast, the European charter segment could certainly be handled by other Dutch airports, provided that the right conditions are created. The same is true of the associated point-to-point connections, which are almost exclusively used to serve the typical holiday destinations and small-scale airports abroad.
Second cornerstone: dependable capacity
A major precondition for the main port’s competitive position is that it has access to a dependable capacity (i.e. minimum level of capacity). However, this capacity is being increasingly taken up by market growth and legislation. This is true both for peak times (in the morning) and for the nighttime. Capacity in the early morning in particular is essential, in order to serve KLM’s intercontinental network. Certain weather conditions can also lead to a shortfall in capacity. This can cause major delays and endangers the hub’s competitive position, in particular in respect of business travellers and transfer passengers.
Spatial planning reservations at Schiphol
In order to be able to have dependable landing and starting capacity during all weather conditions, Schiphol needs to have permanent east-west runway capacity. The three existing north-south runways cannot be used if there is a strong southwesterly wind, in which case the airport has to rely on its two existing east-west runways. The greater the degree to which flight frequency - as the result of declining peak-time volumes and growth in the number of off-peak flights - becomes more constant throughout the day, the greater the number of delays and cancellations in the event of strong winds. An additional factor is that climate change can increase the number of days with strong winds. This will increase the impact that wind conditions will have on operations and thus on the reliability of service (with there also being no certainty about the prevailing wind direction). This is why we have asked the Dutch Government to issue an airport operations ruling to ensure that the Province can continue with the spatial planning reservation for the parallel Runway 06-24 in the regional plan. The need for a prudent national airport policy means we should maintain this reservation as a ‘no regrets’ option.
On the other hand, a fourth north-south runway located between Runways 18R-36L and 18C-36C would not provide any dependable capacity. Accordingly, we no longer see the continuation of the reservation for this runway as a priority, even though the spatial planning reservation for this runway does not at present have a negative impact on any alternative usage options.
Development of the Schiphol-Northwest area
Including its potential expansion with one or two piers, the capacity of Schiphol-Centre is limited to about 60 million passengers a year. In the long term, as far as possible we want to reserve and deploy this capacity for the hub operation run by KLM and the affiliated companies. However, because we forecast growth to about 85 million passengers a year, we will need additional parking and ground handling capacity from the year 2015 onwards. Schiphol-Northwest is the best option in this respect, both in terms of available space, its location vis-à-vis Schiphol-Centre and the runway system, as well as from the perspective of the adaptability of the spatial plans. This means that by the year 2020 or so, Schiphol-Northwest will have to have the necessary infrastructure to handle passengers. This will require this area to be linked to the motorway network (A4, A9 and A5) and to enjoy a direct connection with Schiphol-Centre and its Dutch Railways (NS) station for all national and international train connections. In the long term, there is an option for an additional regional rail link at Schiphol-Northwest, which will also function as a bypass for the Schiphol Tunnel that by then will be running at full capacity.
There is room to expand the current cargo-handling facilities at the existing cargo site at Schiphol-Southeast. Space for the related distribution and logistics services will be created at the nearby Schiphol Logistics Park and in the A4 zone west.
Lelystad and other regional airports
There are certain Amsterdam Airport Schiphol flights that could also be made from regional airports. It may make sense to move them there in order to relieve the pressure on the Schiphol hub as much as possible, and in order to dovetail better with the wishes of both airlines and passengers. In addition, this would eliminate the traffic and noise disturbance imposed on Amsterdam Airport Schiphol’s environs by that traffic that is not required to use Schiphol. At the current time, only the Rotterdam and Eindhoven Airports would be able to handle the overflow of scheduled traffic from Schiphol. A further point is that only Eindhoven Airport can offer additional capacity in the long term. The current noise limits imposed on Eindhoven Airport allow an increase in its capacity to about 5 million passengers per year. If the Ministry of Defence moves its operations to another location, this would create further opportunities for growth. Eindhoven Airport is mainly active in the regional market for business and holiday traffic.
In addition, we believe that the proposed development of Lelystad Airport offers an interesting option for handling the overflow capacity for traffic that still uses Schiphol but that makes no direct contribution to the main port network. At the current time, Lelystad Airport’s primary role is to offer relief and overflow capacity for the minor aviation sector known as ‘general aviation’. Lelystad Airport is currently going through an airport operations ruling procedure that is designed to ensure that from 2010 onwards the airport will be able to offer capacity to European traffic too. To this end, we will extend the runway and invest in a new passenger terminal. This will enable Lelystad to handle about 4-5 million passengers p.a. However, the limits set by the PKB (the 1995 Government white paper on Schiphol and its environs) on runway length and opening times imposes restrictions on the airlines’ operations and on their flight range. If Lelystad wants to be able to act as an overflow airport for Schiphol in the long term, its competitive position (in terms of the runway length and opening times) will have to be improved.
Rotterdam Airport has had strict conditions imposed on its capacity but has worked itself into an excellent position to develop into a City Airport for the business traveller in particular. It would be desirable to bring both Lelystad and Rotterdam Airport into a multi-airport system that would also include Schiphol.
Third cornerstone: competitive 'visit costs'
The development of the main port Schiphol requires a number of major investment decisions to be made. The above investments would total about 300 million euros per annum for the next 15 years, and would relate to the expansion, improvement and innovation of the infrastructure, flight and flying procedures, ground handling facilities, and measures to improve the quality of life in the surrounding area. In order to remain competitive with the other major European hubs, the charges and visit costs must not disadvantage those airlines that make an important contribution to make to the main port network. Up to a certain level, these costs can be held in check by the airport and the visiting airlines by improving load factors and utilisation of the infrastructure, by improving the reliability of the ground handling process, and by improving punctuality and operational efficiency. However, the visit costs are being increasingly influenced by external factors. Specifically, this relates to security measures imposed by the European Union, as well as national government levies intended to internalise - in air fares and airport charges - the negative environmental effects of air travel. The implementation of these rules must not distort the market equilibrium and/or worsen Schiphol’s competitive position. This is why we set great store by always having a ‘level playing field’ on (at least) a European level.
Fourth cornerstone: accessibility
For Schiphol, landside accessibility is of essential importance. Passengers, freight, employees, suppliers and others have to be able to reach the airport quickly and easily. At the edges of its catchment area, Schiphol’s competitive position has declined over the past two decades in favour of Frankfurt and Paris, who have benefited greatly from their connection to the high-speed rail networks. The increasing congestion on the Dutch Railways (NS) rail network in the Randstad region has also affected Schiphol’s competitive position.
The construction of the HSL South line will link Schiphol to the European HSL high-speed rail network. The HSL will extend Schiphol’s catchment area towards Antwerp and Brussels. In addition, this link will ensure that both SkyTeam hubs are optimally interconnected and that the slots that become available can be used for alternative purposes. At present, there is still no fast rail connection to the eastern part of the Netherlands. The Gelderland provincial authorities and the city of Arnhem have drawn up a plan for a ‘Delta line’ rail link. We are supporting this initiative, which aims to improve the reliability and speed of the railway line between Utrecht and the German border without the need for major investment. We are also advocating speeding up the expansion of the capacity on the A4, A2 and A12 motorways, with a view to improving accessibility for passengers and freight. The implementation of ‘corridor routes’ can help in this respect. Such measures as reducing the number of approach roads and exits should reduce motorway congestion. The underlying road network will need to be expanded and/or extended, in order to relieve pressure on the motorways.
We also need to invest in improving regional accessibility, to cope with the increase in mobility. In particular, the volume of commuter traffic is becoming ever more lopsided between the western and eastern flanks of the North Wing of the Randstad, which is why we advocate the construction of a high-grade and frequent regional public transport connection along the corridor Hoofddorp - Schiphol - Zuidas (‘Amsterdam south axis’) - Almere. In addition, over time the bundling of flight traffic would offer greater leeway for house building on the western flank of the North Wing.
Fifth cornerstone: sustainability
Schiphol Group wishes to reduce its environmental impact as much as possible. If we want to retain and improve public support for the airport in the long term too, we will have to make a significant contribution to sustainability and to the quality of life enjoyed in Schiphol’s environs. This is why the aviation sector and the Government must reach agreement with local stakeholders on noise reduction measures and on investment that could help improve the quality of life in the area. These agreements should be set down in covenants. It is clear that an integrated effort to reduce noise levels must be based on four pillars, namely:
the entering into of agreements with local stakeholders regarding use of runways and routes;
an innovative source policy that aims to reduce the deployment of relatively noisy aircraft and to draw up prioritisation criteria for the allocation of new slots;
the introduction of monitoring points to provide better data on noise and other nuisance experienced;
suitable provision of targeted information, including through the setting up of a separate complaints and information centre.
In this vision, we also discuss the issues of air quality, climate, green areas and landscaping in more detail. Our measures include helping to reduce the emission of greenhouse gases and making a financial contribution to investments designed to improve the local quality of life.
Co-production is a prerequisite for success
The common goal shared by the joint regional authorities as set out in their Metropolitan Strategy is to make the Randstad once again one of Europe’s top five most attractive conurbations for international businesses. As part of this vision, we at Schiphol Group have detailed the way in which the main port’s development fits in with this strategy and the measures that need to be taken to achieve it in practice. In this way, we are complying with the Government’s request to come forward in spring 2007 with our vision for the long-term development of Amsterdam Airport Schiphol. Of course, just as important is the contribution that we wish our vision to make to the process of collaboration and co-production with our stakeholders. After all, the great majority of the measures that will need to be implemented to safeguard Schiphol’s long-term position can only be achieved as part of a joint effort with all the parties involved. Conversely, improving the quality of life - in terms of living, working and recreation - in the surrounding area is a shared interest that we want to work together with the stakeholders to achieve. To this end, we will have to build up a position of trust and take due account of each other’s interests and viewpoints. Accordingly, our vision of the future is also intended to serve as input in the process of open dialogue with all those who have a stake in Schiphol’s future.
Highlights of this vision
Market to expand to approx. 85 million passengers and 3.5 million tonnes of freight p.a. by about 2025
Sufficient capacity to handle 600,000 - 650,000 air transport movements.
More selective use of nighttime capacity, as well as maximum incentives (incl. levies and operational measures) to encourage the deployment of quieter planes.
A stronger emphasis on quality, by giving greater priority to flights that contribute to the main port network.
Using a supportive slot policy to prioritise scarce capacity in favour of hub carriers, ICA carriers and those point-to-point carriers that contribute to the European network, and to safeguard the intercontinental network.
Providing relief for Schiphol’s hub function, by taking the outbound traffic not tied to the main port and relocating as much of it as possible to other Dutch airports. Eindhoven and Lelystad Airport are suitable options here, provided that certain prerequisites are met.
Being available to offer a dependable level of capacity at all times. In this respect, the spatial planning reservation for the parallel Runway 06-24 must be retained. It is not necessary to reserve space for a fourth north-south runway.
The increase in traffic means that from 2015 a new passenger area will need to be developed at Schiphol- Northwest. The Schiphol-Southeast cargo site will be expanded to handle cargo growth and overflow from Schiphol-Centre.
Improving the main port’s international competitive position through a process of strategic collaboration between Schiphol Group, KLM and LVNL (Air Traffic Control the Netherlands), plus clear Government policy designed to create favourable business conditions.
Accessibility within the Randstad region and with the hinterland, through the construction of a regional rail link Almere-Zuidas (Amsterdam south axis)-Schiphol-Hoofddorp and a Delta line (HSL over existing track) with east Netherlands and the Ruhr Area (Germany), and through the creation of corridor routes for the existing hinterland connections.
Substitution of air traffic at Paris through optimum integration of the HSL South link into the main port network. In future, substitution at Frankfurt too, thanks to the HSL East link.
Fleshing out and improving air traffic guidance concepts for the bundling of runway and route usage and for reducing nuisance levels and space used in the region.
Collaborating with local residents/businesses etc. by entering into agreements to reduce noise and other nuisance levels, and where such reduction is impossible, to compensate those affected.
Strategic collaboration and co-production with our stakeholders is a precondition for success.
- Long Term Vision for Schiphol (HTML) - Only available in dutch
- Long Term Vision for Schiphol (PDF) - Only available in dutch