Amsterdam Airport Schiphol has set a cap on the number of passengers it can handle during the summer travel season on Thursday due to labor shortages.
Traveling by one of Europe’s busiest airports means that airlines, including Air France-KLM’s Dutch subsidiary, KLM, must cancel an unspecified number of flights.
Schiphol Airport accepted about 70,000 passengers a day, about 16% less than the airline had planned, or 13,500 seats a day.
“Setting limits means that the majority of travelers can travel safely and responsibly from Skipol,” CEO Dick Benschop said in a statement.
KLM said Skipol will be responsible for the economic impact of the move.
“People at the airport cannot structurally pay for Skipole’s capacity issues,” the airline said.
KLM said it does not need to cancel existing bookings “on a large scale”.
Airports around Europe are suffering from labor and logistics problems due to the surge in passenger movement after the blockade of Covid-19. Airlines such as Lufthansa and easyJet have already announced plans to reduce flights this summer.
Travel at Schiphol Airport has been frequently suspended since April due to a shortage of security guards and baggage handlers. Hundreds of flights have been canceled and long lines have become routine.
Lufthansa of Germany will cancel 900 domestic and European flights on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays at its hubs in Frankfurt and Munich in July. This is about 5% of capacity. Its low-cost carrier Eurowings has dropped hundreds of flights during the same period.
EasyJet in Germany operates approximately 12 flights per day (1,000 flights in total) to and from Berlin Airport from June 1st to August 31st.
