The State Secretary of the Ministry of Infrastructure and the Environment of The Netherlands, Sharon Dijksma, has asked the management of Amsterdam Schiphol Schiphol airport to come up with a proposal on how to mitigate the shortage of slots for dedicated-freighter flights at the country's largest airport, the Loadstar has reported.
As Schipol is now operating close to capacity, several cargo airlines including AirBridgeCargo, Emirates SkyCargo, Singapore Airlines Cargo, Suparna Airlines have been forced to move their operations to alternative airports such as Brussels National, Copenhagen Kastrup, Frankfurt International, Liège and Frankfurt Hahn. The operators have received fewer to no slots at Schipol than in previous years because they did not operate at least 80% of flights on time, and as scheduled during the summer timetable season, as IATA slot rules typically require.
Dijksma hopes to find a local solution that is in line "with the principles of the European final regulation" allowing cargo operators to retain slots even if they break the 80:20 rule that the majority of members of the Airport Coordination Netherlands board of directors can agree to.
According to the organization's website, its members currently include KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, Transavia Airlines, Martinair (Netherlands), TUI fly (Netherlands) and Amsterdam Schiphol, Eindhoven and Rotterdam airports.
