The head of KLM’s employee’s council has told De Telegraaf that the Dutch government’s plans to downsize Schiphol Airport will end up costing thousands of jobs at the Netherlands’s flag carrier airline. The government wants to reduce the number of flights into and out of the airport by almost 50.000 per year, but the issue is proving to be a divisive one. 

Dutch government submitted Schiphol downsizing plan to EU

The Dutch government has already submitted plans to the European Union to shrink operations at Schiphol Airport, with the authorities hoping to cut the number of flights into and out of the airport from 500.000 to 452.000 flights per year. Employees of the Dutch airline KLM are unsurprisingly not happy with the idea, with the head of the company’s employee’s council Dario Fucci stating that jobs will have to be cut to make the transition. “Fewer [runway] slots means fewer planes and fewer staff. It’s that simple”, Fucci told De Telegraaf. 

KLM’s workers are not the only ones unhappy with the deal. Schiphol recently submitted its own plans to stop night flights and prevent private planes from using the airport in order to try to appease policymakers, but this plan was surprisingly rejected by lawmakers in The Hague several weeks ago.

Outside the Netherlands, there are also other outraged parties. Transport officials in the United States are asking questions about the future of US airlines at the airport. According to Dutch broadcaster NOS, a letter received by the Dutch Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management threatened to make future cooperation between Dutch and US airlines more difficult if policymakers push ahead with cutting more flights. 

KLM affected “disproportionately” by shrinkage plans

According to Fucci, KLM is affected disproportionately by the plans. “KLM is a network airline that flies all over the world and has its home base here [in Amsterdam]. That is different to, for example, Ryanair or easyJet, who only fly in Europe and therefore stay within one market. Due to the shrinkage, landing rights in other countries may be taken away from us [in retaliation] because other airlines are also allowed to fly less to Schiphol,” Fucci told De Telegraaf.

Fucci also went on to discuss the financial implications of the downsizing. The employee’s council head told the newspaper that recent falls in the share price of Air France-KLM could be partially traced back to a loss of investor confidence, and that Schiphol has also faced a decline in creditworthiness since the start of the discussions.

Image: Shutterstock.com / Milosz Maslanka