Last year, 25.5 million passengers travelled to, from or through Schiphol. That’s a 22% increase compared to 2020 (20.9 million travellers) and a 64% decrease compared to 2019 (71.7 million travellers). Eindhoven Airport saw traveller numbers increase from 2.1 to 2.7 million (+28%), Rotterdam The Hague Airport from 0.5 to 0.8 million (+48%). The number of travellers at the Royal Schiphol Group airports, therefore, increased relative to 2020, but numbers are still significantly different from pre-pandemic levels.
Amsterdam Airport Schiphol
Travellers
Out of these 25.5 million travellers in 2021, 11.1 million had a connecting flight at Schiphol. These are in fact 5.5 million individual travellers who, in accordance with the international counting method, were counted once as an arriving traveller and once as a departing traveller.
Air transport movements
Last year, there were a total of 266,967 air transport movements at Schiphol. That’s a 17% increase relative to 2020 (227,304 air transport movements) and a 46% decrease when compared with 2019 (496.826 air transport movements). The recovery seen in air transport movements is, therefore, larger than that seen in traveller numbers. This is because airlines endeavoured to maintain their networks as much as possible.
Destinations
Schiphol directly connected the Netherlands to 296 destinations, 118 of them intercontinental. That figure was 316 in 2020 and 332 in 2019. Despite there being 20 fewer destinations than in 2020, Schiphol was one of the best-connected airports in Europe in 2021 according to the ACI connectivity report. Examples of destinations that were no longer part of the network in 2021: Windhoek, Namibia; Portland, USA; Mombasa, Kenya; Havana, Cuba.
Cargo
Schiphol processed 1.66 million tonnes of cargo in 2021 – an increase of 15% relative to 2020 (1,44 million tonnes) and of 5% relative to 2019 (1,57 million tonnes). There were 23,996 cargo-only flights. That represents a 1% rise compared to 2020 (23,782 cargo-only flights) and a 70% rise compared to 2019 (14,156 cargo-only flights). This significant increase in cargo flights is due to temporary slots being available at Schiphol. In 2021, Schiphol and partners in the cargo sector contributed to the transportation of COVID-19 vaccines.
Eindhoven Airport
There were 21,704 air transport movements at Eindhoven Airport in 2021. That’s an increase of 15% compared to 2020 (18,882 air transport movements) and a decrease of 48% compared to 2019 (41,438 air transport movements). The number of destinations in 2021 was the same as 2020, with 79 direct destinations. That’s 10 fewer than in 2019.
Rotterdam The Hague Airport
Rotterdam The Hague Airport had 6,355 commercial air transport movements last year. That’s a rise of 20% relative to 2020 (5,314 air transport movements) and a drop of 62% relative to 2019 (16,683 air transport movements). The total number of destinations in 2021 remained the same as in 2020, with 36 direct destinations. That’s 14 fewer than in 2019.
Gradual recovery
The consequences of the coronavirus pandemic for the Dutch aviation sector were significant in 2021 too. Recovery was minimal during the first half of the year, with 86,037 air transport movements and around 5.6 million travellers. Recovery started to pick up during the summer months. The second half of the year saw a total of 180,932 air transport movements and 19.9 million travellers. The degree of recovery is in line with the prognosis previously issued by Schiphol at the presentation of the interim results.
These are the preliminary traffic and transport figures of Royal Schiphol Group. The definitive figures will be disclosed upon publication of the financial statements in February.