A coalition of 15 local authorities located close to Schiphol airport or under its flight paths have called on the next government to ban night flying to protect local residents.
The councils, including Amsterdam, Leiden, Haarlem and Zaanstad, want the airport to shut down between 11 pm and 7 am to make sure that thousands of people no longer face disturbed nights.
They claim there were more than 2,400 night flights to and from the airport in 2024.
“Long-lasting exposure to this noise can cause sleeping problems, stress and heart and artery disease,” the councils said in a press release.
“The reduced cognitive functioning which is linked to disturbed nights leads to lower levels of concentration and productivity, and causes social and economic damage.”
Schiphol, which suffered major disruption during last week’s snow, operates some 480,000 take-offs and landings a year and is one of the world’s most intensively used airports.
Major airports such as London Heathrow, Frankfurt and Paris Charles de Gaulle all operate stricter rules for night flights than Schiphol, the councils say.
In June 2024, Amsterdam city council called for a 400,000 ceiling on flights to and from Schiphol and an end to night flying. Amsterdam owns 20% of the airport’s shares.
And at the end of 2024, a group of locals announced plans to take the airport to court, for mishandeling or failing to take due care, of their health.
The state and KLM and Transavia, which are the “two biggest night noise makers”, are responsible for an attack on their health because for “for years people have been robbed of their sleep due to excessive noise nuisance”, the complainants said at the time.
Fewer slots
The government has been discussing cuts to the number of take-offs and landings at Schiphol since June 2022, when the target was set at 440,000. That decision led to protests from airlines and from the US because of the likely impact on transatlantic flights.
The outgoing government then decided early last year a maximum of 478,000 take-offs and landings would be sufficient.
The European Commission said last April it had no major objections to the cabinet’s plans to cut flights at Schiphol airport but said it had “identified some shortcomings” in the proposals.
