Many holidaymakers flew back home in August, and this is the busiest month of the year in terms of arriving passengers. Last month saw upwards of 6.8 million passengers travelling to, from or via Schiphol, making August just slightly busier than July. This is an increase of 6% relative to last year, with Schiphol welcoming between 200,000 and 235,000 passengers daily.
The growth in passenger numbers was the result of more seats, an increased load factor and slightly more movements.
The number of cargo flights grew by 2.9%, with a higher load factor of full freighters pushing the volume up 7.6%.
Destinations
Of the 6.8 million passengers, 4.9 million were travelling within Europe. The United Kingdom was the top destination and still managed strong growth in passenger numbers (+5.2%). Spain and Italy (the other countries in the top three) grew by 3.4% and 7.5%, respectively. The summer destination of Greece grew by 14.4%.
In August there were 1.9 million intercontinental passengers. This was 3% more than in August last year. The highest growth in the number of intercontinental passengers was on flights to and from North America (+8.1%).
Click here for the complete overview of traffic and transport figures for August 2017.