AMS slot scarcity pressures freighters

Amsterdam Schiphol Airport’s annual maximum of 500,000 air traffic movements (ATMs) is challenging freighter operations at the airport and has led the Dutch airfreight community association Air Cargo the Netherlands (CAN) to request a local rule from the Airport Slot Coordination Committee to exempt full-freighter operations from the restrictions.

While Dutch officials said the rule would be implemented if other airlines at AMS agreed to it, low-cost airlines have rejected the proposed rule in what industry and trade associations called a “death strike for the freight sector and the position of Schiphol as an international mainport,” Air Cargo News reported.

The current ATM maximum will remain in place through 2020 as scheduled, and as the first half of 2017 saw a 4.9 percent increase in ATMs at the airport compared with the previous year – which reached 479,000 total ATMs over the calendar year – the airport expects to reach the maximum in 2017. Because airlines must keep to their scheduled slots 80 percent of the time or risk losing them, and flying on a fixed schedule is sometimes difficult for full-freighter operations, the increasing traffic at the airport is presenting a challenge for freighters. Already this year, some freighter traffic is being redirected to other airports over the slot scarcity, with four of Singapore Airlines’ eight weekly cargo flights to AMS moving to Brussels Airport. AirBridgeCargo is also moving flights from AMS to Liege Airport for the same reason.

To attract freighters from Amsterdam, other airports are focusing on decreasing the types of restrictions carriers are encountering at AMS, according to Liege Airport’s commercial director Steven Verhasselt – “Priority for freighters, no curfew, no slot limitations and dedicated freighter services.”