Smart maintenance while Amsterdam Airport Schiphol is quiet

There are very few travellers at Schiphol right now, which presents a nice opportunity to carry out maintenance. Workers are continuing to clean in many parts of the airport so it will be spic and span for when air traffic resumes. 

Making good progress

Maintenance is an ongoing process at Schiphol. This mainly takes place overnight the airport is being fully used. It is quiet at night and does not inconvenience people. People also do a lot of phased work because there are times when they can’t finish everything before the airport fills up again. Right now, they don’t have to account for busy days at the airport, which is why maintenance is moving fast.

From water pipes to fibre optic cables

Staff have replaced the drinking water pipe valves in Departures and Arrivals 3, which would normally be quite a complicated job if the airport were full. It meant the shut-down of the entire drinking water supply for Departures and Arrival, which nobody would want under normal circumstances – but now is the right time without travellers around. People are also working on the expansion of security lane numbers in Departures 4 and will establish extra passport control counters in Departures 3. There is also a lot of I.T. maintenance works, like software updates, placing screens and rolling-out our fibre optic network.

Runway maintenance and road works

Of course, maintenance takes place both inside and outside at Schiphol. The landing strip is being repaired and one is also working on the road. Road works never really work out fully, particularly when it comes to our busiest access road. That road runs from the Schiphol exit on the A4 to Departures. However, the road surface must be refinished from time to time. Phased planning was created earlier, and the details are worked out in order to minimise the inconvenience that could be caused to travellers. However, those plans were jettisoned when all works could be accelerated practically in the coming weeks

Safety first

Safety always comes first at Schiphol, as it does now. It’s an important basic condition to be able to work at a distance of 1.5 metres from each other. If that can’t occur for various reasons, then the work is moved to a time when that is possible.