Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport has led the world in cancellations over the past few days as snow disrupted travel in the Netherlands.
More than 2,500 flights were canceled in and out of the Dutch capital between last Friday and Tuesday, as of 10 a.m. per data from FlightAware.
By Monday, the cancellation rate rose from 28% to over half of all scheduled flights.
Handling over 66 million passengers a year, Amsterdam is the fourth-busiest airport in Europe and is a major hub for transcontinental travellers.
Data from Flightradar24 showed the chaos on the tarmac on Monday.
A flight operated by KLM, the Dutch flag carrier, was supposed to take off for London at 9 a.m. But after it left the gate, it taxied around the airport twice before going back to the gate after almost two and a half hours.
“Due to ongoing winter weather, air traffic at Schiphol is disrupted,” a KLM spokesperson said. “The winter conditions are expected to continue in the coming days.”
Flight-tracking data also showed how an Emirates Airbus A380 spent three hours on the tarmac after landing before being able to move to its assigned gate.
It later flew back to Dubai, seven hours behind schedule.
For about an hour on Monday morning, some incoming flights had to divert while the weather was at its worst, an airport spokesperson said.
These included an Air Canada flight that diverted to Frankfurt, Germany; two KLM flights from South America that landed in Paris; and a Garuda Indonesia flight from Jakarta that ended up in Brussels.
Flights that were still able to take off from Schiphol have faced average delays of almost two hours.
With temperatures below freezing, the delays are, in part, being caused by queues for de-icing. If a plane takes off with ice on its wings, it can cause a dangerous loss of control.
A KLM spokesperson told Business Insider that the airline has four de-icing locations at Schiphol, which are at maximum capacity. “It takes about 30 minutes to de-ice an aircraft, which may cause delays,” they added.
The Schiphol spokesperson said the airport is “continuing to monitor the weather situation closely.”
“At present, only limited flight operations are possible,” they added.
Are you caught up in the disruption in Amsterdam? Reach out to this reporter at [email protected]
