Dutch airports handled record 70 million passengers in 2016

Photo: Depositphotos.com

More than 70 million passengers moved through Dutch aiports in 2016, an all-time record, the national statistic office CBS said on Tuesday.

Amsterdam and four regional airports handled a combined 64.6 million passengers the previous year.

The highest year-on-year growth was registed between the Netherlands and Spain (+19.8%) and Portugal (+16.9%), while flights to and from Turkey fell by 17.5%, the CBS said.

Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport handed a record 63.5 milllion passengers in 2016. Eindhoven, the country’s second-largest airport, saw passenger numbers increase by 9.3% to nearly 4.8 million passengers, despite a six-week closure to upgrade runways in the early summer.

The Rotterdam/The Hague, Maastricht/Aachen and Groingen Eelde airport handled the remaining 3% of passengers in 2016.

Of the 70.3 million passengers last year, 10.3 million, or 15%, were moving between the Netherlands and Britain. Spain followed with 7.5 million passengers, followed by the US with five million passengers, the CBS said.

The busiest routes were between Schiphol and London’s Heathrow and Schiphol and Barcelona.

Thank you for donating to DutchNews.nl.

We could not provide the Dutch News service, and keep it free of charge, without the generous support of our readers. Your donations allow us to report on issues you tell us matter, and provide you with a summary of the most important Dutch news each day.

Make a donation