The Dutch Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management, Airport Coordination Netherlands (ACNL), and KLM Royal Dutch Airlines (KL, Amsterdam Schiphol) rejected allegations made by Kalitta Air (K4, Detroit Willow Run) to the US Department of Transportation (DOT) about discriminatory practices at Amsterdam Schiphol.

The three parties - including KLM, which was not named by Kalitta as a potential perpetrator of discrimination - underlined in their comments that the American cargo specialist did not suffer from unfair treatment in the Netherlands. They also elaborated that the appeal process was still ongoing.

"At this moment Kalitta's objections are under ACNL's consideration. ACNL expects to make a decision at the end of February or beginning of March. In case Kalitta disagrees with ACNL's decision on their objections, an appeal at the district court is possible. As long as the objections are under consideration, ACNL cannot reply in substantive terms but confines itself to the following. ACNL allocates slots in line with EU Regulation EEC 95/93 and the IATA Worldwide Slot Guidelines (WSG)," Acting Managing Director of ACNL Herman Vreeburg wrote.

Acting Director-General for Civil Aviation Rob Huyser further underlined that the decision to deny landing slots at Amsterdam to Kalitta was not contravening the US-European Union bilateral air traffic agreement.

"As there is no link between traffic rights and slots this means that foreign airlines that operate via AMS will always have to obtain slots irrespective of the applicable bilateral or EU agreement. In view of the scarce capacity at AMS, which has reached its maximal allowed capacity of 500,000 movements earlier than forecasted, this has led to the situation that a number of airlines aside from Kalitta Air have also not always been able to obtain the slots they requested for at AMS," Huyser wrote.

"To the extent Kalitta may be experiencing difficulties with its AMS operations, it is the result of Kalitta’s own failure to abide by AMS’ longstanding and well-known slot policies and requirements... KLM’s operations have not exceeded the number of slots granted to it, whereas Kalitta seems to intentionally have operated flights without a slot allocation," the Dutch flag carrier further stipulated.

All three entities underlined that ACNL is independent of the government, the airport authorities, or KLM and takes decisions based solely on slot allocation guidelines. KLM said that, in the past, ACNL has been "scrupulously even-handed in its treatment of airlines".

Kalitta Air complained to the DOT that the rules adopted at Schiphol effectively discriminated against it and favoured KLM and its cargo subsidiary Martinair (Netherlands). The airline, in particular, points out that while it indeed falls short of the required 80% usage of its slots, this is mostly due to the fact that it operates on behalf of the US government and has limited power over the schedules. Kalitta Air also indicates that while it often misses the allocated time slots, it operates the vast majority of its planned services into Amsterdam.