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Amsterdam airport becomes first to cap flight total for the climate

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Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport is the third-largest in Europe, and yet it will become the world’s first to cap the number of flights permitted every year. Touted as a response to the climate crisis, will this prompt wider industry change?

Still preoccupied with the whole EPA debacle? Here’s a tidbit of positive news for you.

While the aviation industry currently makes up 2.1% of all human-induced carbon emissions, a recent milestone has provided a glimmer of hope that we may see significant change soon.

In the Netherlands, the nation’s transportation minister Mark Harbers is targeting a big reduction in annual pollution levels. Beginning in late 2023, this will culminate in the first ever legal cap on the total flights allocated to an airport.

The institution in question is Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport – which is the third-largest flight hub in Europe. Right now, it can legally schedule half a million take-offs annually, but that total will be cut back to 440,000 next year.

https://youtu.be/wLJFzdzFWo8

You may shrug at the 60,000-flight reduction as though it’s no big deal (and fair enough), but plans had previously been drafted to bump up flight allocations to 540,000 – amid feelings of economic insecurity spurred by the pandemic. That idea, thankfully, has been well and truly scuppered.

With concerns of liquidation now simmering down, ‘research shows that people expect to fly less after the pandemic,’ says Dutch Greenpeace officer Maarten de Zeeuw. ‘We simply do not need all those flights anymore,’ he adds.

Now, we’ve known this to be the case for a while, what with airliners absurdly carrying out empty ‘ghost flights’ by the thousand to keep their runway permits binding. But, with Schiphol’s pioneering regulations, we have renewed hope that the wider aviation industry may be inspired to adopt similar methods.

That’s not to say that we’re entirely over the moon with all the details. In terms of concrete emission reduction targets, there aren’t any. So why is 60,000 flights deemed the golden ticket then?

https://youtu.be/ldhilLgVML0

There’s also a lack of clarity on how much pollution can be removed, with dependant factors like flight length failing to enter into the considerations. Surely, the sensible thing to do beforehand, would be to create objectives built on climate data and then pick the cut-off point?

As de Zeeuw rightly asserted: The aviation sector needs to make a climate plan that is in line with the Paris Agreement and the 1.5-degree objective… and then decide how many flights are still possible.’

Whilst sustainable aviation fuels remain in development, and net zero vehicle prototypes are being tinkered with, crucially, we need changes to legislation now that ensure we aren’t standing still in our mitigation efforts.

On that front, the Schiphol Airport plan is far from perfect, but we hope this is merely the first step for both the Netherlands and, eventually, the entire aviation industry.

Senior Writer London, UK

I’m Jamie (He/Him), the Deputy Editor and a Senior Writer at Thred. Keeping up with social media updates and revolutionary technology is my forte, but when away from my keyboard, you’ll probably find me wrapped around a large Tango ice blast at the latest mediocre horror flick. Follow me on Twitter, LinkedIn and drop me some ideas/feedback via email.

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