The number of flights at Schiphol will not be at its old level until 2023 at the earliest, says Schiphol CEO Dick Benschop on Saturday in Faithful. The boss of Schiphol is thinking about a gradual recovery of the activities at the airport.
“I want a controlled recovery,” Benschop told the newspaper. “That can take years.”
The maximum number of flight movements at Schiphol is 500,000 flights per year. When there is more demand for flights after the corona crisis, the Schiphol CEO wants this ceiling not to be reached again in one go.
The CEO cannot yet say what the step-by-step recovery will look like on Saturday. Whether the flight times that are released due to, for example, the bankruptcy of an airline will be filled in the same way, according to Benschop, depends on social priorities.
“Of course Schiphol is there to connect the Netherlands to the world, to economic centers. But we also need to be more sustainable and create a better balance with the environment, which is experiencing nuisance. I want to investigate how we can do that,” Benschop told the newspaper .
The CEO takes into account various outcomes of the crisis. For example, it is still unclear how long the crisis will last, and it is also impossible to predict the course of the economic recovery. The travel behavior of citizens and companies may also change, according to Benschop, partly because video calling is now widely used.
Preparing for one and a half meter society
Part of Schiphol is already equipped for the one and a half meter society, including screens and stripes on the ground. “But the question is still how it goes in a situation where there is more flown,” Benschop told Faithful.
Work is therefore underway on a protocol for the near future, which should be ready next week. “It may be a requirement that we screen all passengers with a fit-to-fly-questionnaire “, says Benschop. Measuring the body temperature of passengers is also an option for the protocol.
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