7 hours Ago
Snow, War, and a Sharp Drop at Schiphol
The numbers tell a clear story. Dutch airports handled 115,000 commercial flights in the first quarter, down from 121,500 during the same stretch a year ago. Every single month in the quarter came in below the previous year's figures for flights. Passenger numbers followed a similar pattern in January and February, though March offered a small bright spot — volumes climbed 1.6 percent above March 2025 levels.
Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam dominates Dutch aviation, handling 89 percent of all flights and 88 percent of all passengers in the country. In the first quarter, 102,000 flights operated from Schiphol — a 6.4 percent reduction — while the total number of travelers dropped by 3.1 percent to 14.4 million. The main culprit was the heavy snowfall that paralyzed the airport in the first ten days of January. Icy runways and de-icing delays forced hundreds of cancellations. On January 7 alone, only 382 flights operated — nearly 67 percent fewer than on the same day the previous year. Between January 1 and 10, just 1.2 million passengers moved through Schiphol, a drop of more than a quarter compared to the same window in 2025. Other airports across the country faced similar disruptions during that stretch.
Middle East War Hits Regional Routes Hard
The impact of the Iran conflict was swift and dramatic. After the first U.S. and Israeli strikes in late February, airspace across a wide part of the Middle East was shut down. The effect was almost immediate. In March, Dutch airports operated just 425 flights to and from Israel, Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates combined — a staggering 60 percent drop from March 2025. Flights to and from Qatar fell by 80 percent, while routes to and from Israel were down 85 percent.
Passenger figures told an even starker story. Travel between the Netherlands and Qatar collapsed by more than 91 percent, shrinking from 33,800 in March 2025 to just 3,000 this year. Passenger numbers to and from the UAE fell by 82 percent, and those connected to Israel by 90.5 percent.
Cargo, however, held up well amid the turbulence. Total freight volume across Dutch airports grew by 6 percent to over 373,000 tons in the first quarter. Maastricht Aachen Airport stood out with a remarkable 57.5 percent increase, moving more than 11,000 tons of goods. China and the United States were the primary trading partners driving that freight activity.
