Traffic and transport figures for May 2018

In May of this year 6.4 million travellers flew from, to or via Schiphol. This is an increase of +3% compared with last year. May was, as it traditionally is, a busy holiday month, although the peak for departures was partly in April.

The number of air transport movements decreased by 1.5% relative to the previous year. Average aircraft size has increased greatly, with an average of 3.8 more seats per air transport movement. The occupancy rate has additionally risen by nearly 1.8% to 86.0%. The number of passengers departing from or arriving at Schiphol grew by 5.6%, while the number of transfer passengers decreased slightly (−1.8%).

Cargo
In May, cargo had to make do with 9.6% fewer cargo flights than the previous year. The total volume of cargo decreased by only 4.5%, however, because more cargo (+1.1%) was transported on board passenger flights.

Passenger destinations
Over 4.6 million passengers travelled within Europe, an increase of 2.6%. This month, besides the standard development of the network destinations, we have observed an increase in passengers to the Turkish Riviera, Portugal and the Greek islands.

Intercontinental traffic grew by 4.2%. The largest destination is the United States, which thanks to additional flights shows strong growth in passenger volumes to Dallas and New York JFK. Santiago de Chile and Mumbai are seeing rapid increases in passenger volume due to additional flights as well. Taken together, the Netherlands Antilles and Aruba welcomed 7.3% more passengers from Schiphol than in the year before. Closer to home, we can see that Egypt has experienced a marked increase in popularity as a holiday destination (+34.0% growth in passenger numbers). Fewer flights are departing to Cuba, the Dominican Republic and Morocco; we are observing a decrease in passenger volume for these destinations.

Click here for a full overview of the traffic and transport figures for May 2018.