For the first time since the Covid-19 pandemic grounded flights across the globe, Dutch airports have recorded a year-on-year drop in passenger numbers. In the first quarter of 2026, a total of 16.2 million people passed through the Netherlands' five national airports — a decline of more than 2 percent compared to the same period in 2025. Two very different forces drove that fall: a brutal January snowstorm and the outbreak of war involving Iran, which the United States and Israel initiated in late February.
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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 .
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