Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport had a bad 2022 according to parent company Royal Schiphol Group.
Publishing what it said were "poor financial results for 2022", the group said its "underlying financial result" was a loss of €28 million, "despite a strong recovery in traffic", which was up 49% on 2021.
The 2022 loss compared well with the roughly €280 million in 2021 and the more than €500 million the year before that, said the group, which also runs Eindhoven and Rotterdam The Hague airports. Passenger numbers for the three hubs hit 60.8 million in 2022, a more than 100% increase on 2021.
But the revival of traffic, most of which goes through Schiphol, was "overshadowed" by "upscaling issues" and "extra costs" of around €120 million, as well as a fall in cargo traffic of almost 25%.
"Never before in Schiphol’s history have we disappointed so many travellers and airlines as in 2022. Our efforts and hard work did not lead to the necessary improvements in the system and, as a result, we were not able to provide the service we wanted," said Ruud Sondag, the group's chief executive.
"2022 will therefore go down as a bad chapter in our own history books. But it is also a chapter we will not forget, so that all new chapters we write will be better. We are working hard on this, and in 2022 we started to implement structural improvements. Because we have to do better. And I am convinced that we can," said Sondag.
But the group sounded a pessimistic note about prospects for 2023, saying "full traffic recovery towards pre-pandemic levels remains uncertain and is subject to development of Covid-19 and corresponding travel restrictions."
Other headwinds include "potential operational constraints to cope with the strong pick-up in demand, and - in the medium term - the announcement by the Dutch Government to cap the number of flight movements at Amsterdam Airport Schiphol to 440,000 as of November 2024", the group added.