Lelystad airport will be given approval for its expansion plans, junior transport secretary Wilma Mansveld will tell the cabinet on Friday, broadcaster RTL quotes sources in The Hague as saying.

The plans will see Lelystad airport overhauled and expanded to take charter flights to ease congestion at Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport. The new airport will have a runway of 2,400 metres, enabling it to serve holiday traffic to the rest of Europe, North Africa and the Middle East.

In April, the state-owned Schiphol airport authority said it will put €90m into the development of the new runway and a passenger terminal which will open in 2018.

Growth

Once up and running, the airport is forecast to grow to 1.5 million passengers a year in 2023 and 3.7 million in 2033.

There have been plans to expand Lelystad airport and move charter flights there for at least 10 years, all of which have stumbled on planning regulations.