The Dutch take to the air en masse

Easter, Ascension, spring bank holiday, summer and autumn holidays: the Dutch will be on the move in the coming months. And more and more Dutch travellers prefer to go by air. In the months ahead around 200,000 people will travel via Schiphol each day. That’s as many as the entire population of the city of Groningen. And you will certainly notice it when you fly.

But we won’t let that spoil your holiday if we can help it, so we and our partners will be making an extra effort. Our mission is to connect the Netherlands with the rest of the world. And we want to do that for everyone. Everyone should be able to enjoy a well-deserved holiday.

How do we do that?

Above all by not taking a holiday ourselves. During the peak season even more staff are on duty than usual. At the busiest moments, we have more people to open all the security lanes to check you and your bags through, to supervise the car parks and show you the fastest routes, and to assist you in the departure halls.

We also provide extra kiosks to do your own passport checks. And you may even be leaving from our new temporary extra departure hall, which we have built to create more space.

‘Just’ be on time

Is there anything we want you to do? Yes. Most important of all: make sure to be on time. Please check your airline. For flights to countries in the Schengen area, that often means being in the departure hall two hours before your flight, and for non-European destinations three hours. But when it starts to get busy, they can advise otherwise.

At the same time, it helps if you proceed straight to security and passport control immediately after checking in your bags. Then you can be sure you’ll pass all the controls in good time. You can also save time by checking in in advance and by ensuring that you don’t have more liquids than authorised and none that are prohibited. We’re happy to help you, but it’s faster if you do it yourself.

Security is paramount

When it comes to waiting we can promise you two things. First, we and our partners do all we can to ensure your wait is as short as possible. Second: you will always have to wait at least some time. That’s because security is our top priority, and security means checking. Checking takes time. It’s never fun to wait, but to alleviate the boredom, on the busiest days we provide a little entertainment on the way.

Finally: How big is the holiday peak?

Peak period for the holiday season lasts from Easter to the end of October. That is 134 days when more than 200,000 people travel through Schiphol every day. To carry them, airlines fly nearly 1,500 planes in all. This year, almost twenty million more people will travel through Schiphol than ten years ago. And while until recently the peak fell in the traditional summer holiday, today that period is from April to October. Since we can safely assume that demand for air travel will continue to increase, we are preparing for the future. One way we’re doing this is by building a new terminal and pier.