In September, 1.3 million passengers flew to, from or via Schiphol – a decrease of 79.4% compared with the same month last year. The number of passenger flights to and from Schiphol in September declined by 53.2% to a total of 20,066. While there was a 65.7% increase in cargo flights (2,096 in total) compared with September last year, the tonnage transported decreased by 9%. September saw a continuation of the drop in passenger traffic that began at the end of August.
Travellers
Out of the 1.3 million travellers in September, 1.1 million travelled to or from a destination in Europe. This amount is 76.4% lower than the same month last year, which saw 4.6 million travellers. Around 200,000 travellers flew to an intercontinental destination. This is 87.3% fewer than September 2019, when 1.8 million passengers flew intercontinentally. Passenger traffic to all continents decreased significantly, ranging from 74% less (Latin America) to 91% less (North America). While the number of European travellers increased slightly in the past summer months and is now decreasing again, the number of intercontinental travellers remained stable during that period.
Cargo
The total amount of intercontinental aircraft movements dropped by 45.7% compared with 2019. This is smaller than the drop in the number of intercontinental passengers due to the rise (of 65.7%) in cargo flights. The increasing number of fully cargo flights have mainly flown to North America and Asia, but the other continents saw an increase compared with 2019 too. However, just as in the past few months, this rise in cargo flight movements is not enough to compensate for the loss of tonnage being transported in the hold of passenger aircraft.
Click here for the complete overview of traffic and transport figures for September 2020.
Forecast for October
Schiphol expects that the number of daily flights in October will vary between 500 and 700, and that the number of passengers will decrease to between 25,000 and 48,000 per day.