Amsterdam Schiphol Airport has entered its fifth straight day of major disruption, with snow, ice, and operational constraints continuing to cripple one of Europe’s busiest hubs and sending shockwaves through airline schedules across the continent.
Amsterdam Schiphol Airport Meltdown Drags On As Cancellations Mount For KLM And Passengers
What has unfolded at Amsterdam Schiphol over the last several days is not a single bad weather day, but a compounding operational crisis. Persistent snow, freezing temperatures, and strong winds have sharply reduced the airport’s ability to operate at normal capacity, forcing airlines to cancel large numbers of flights day after day. The result has been rolling cancellations, missed connections, and growing frustration for passengers traveling to, from, or through the Dutch capital.
Per FlightAware, AMS simply cannot shake its operational difficulty:
- Saturday, January 3 – 385 or 31% of flights cancelled on
- Sunday, January 4 – 568 or 43% of flights cancelled on
- Monday, January 5 – 726 or 53% of flights cancelled
- Tuesday, January 6 – 276 or 46% of flights cancelled (and that list is growing)
For KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, the impact has been especially severe. As Schiphol’s largest airline and primary hub carrier, KLM relies on tight aircraft rotations and high daily utilization. When runway availability drops and de-icing queues grow long, those finely tuned schedules unravel quickly. KLM has been forced to cancel hundreds of flights as aircraft and crews fall out of position, with recovery becoming harder the longer the disruption lasts.
At the core of the problem is Schiphol’s limited ability to process aircraft in sustained winter conditions. Snow and ice slow runway operations and significantly lengthen de-icing times. When multiple aircraft require de-icing simultaneously, departures back up rapidly, as we continue to see. Add wind restrictions and reduced runway throughput (takeoffs and landings per hour), and the airport simply cannot move planes fast enough to keep schedules intact.
But the problem is acute for KLM, which is now running out of de-icing fluid:
For passengers, the consequences extend well beyond Amsterdam. Schiphol is a major connecting hub linking Europe with North America, Africa, and Asia. When flights are canceled in bulk, downstream connections collapse as well, and that is exactly what we are seeing.
Should Amsterdam Schiphol and KLM have better prepared for this weather by investing in more de-icing and other equipment? It’s also easy to point fingers, but there is also a cost-benefit analysis in investing millions of Euro into hedging against freak weather events…I think it’s too soon to point fingers, though the answer may ultimately be yes indeed.
That said, passengers are struggling. With hotels full many have been forced to camp out in the airport and tempers have understandably flared:
https://www.tiktok.com/@tvparodym/video/7591385748771851542?
CONCLUSION
The ongoing meltdown at Amsterdam Schiphol is a reminder that even careful planning cannot protect against persistent severe weather. For KLM, the challenge now is not just managing cancellations, but rebuilding a complex global network once conditions improve. I feel very bad for the passengers who are stranded, especially because there is no relief in sight…
Always nice to see DL get the screws tightened on them a bit.
I guess, Delta leads the US airlines in epic multi day meltdowns too
Tim! Assemble!
‘All airlines experience IROPS, at times… including United…’
At least passengers can get reimbursement for hotels, meals and other expenses. If that happened in the US, they’d be on their own.
Doubtful. The EU airlines are just as bad at skirting around these things. With that said, as hotels are noted as being non-existent now as a result of the meltdown, it seems a moot point.
There need to be much greater, far more consequential financial penalties for the airlines (and airport management), because this is entirely predictable. Everyone builds their business around wildly optimistic and completely unrealistic expectations, so there’s not enough slack in the systems to recover from anything beyond minor blips; when serious disruptions of anything occur, the public is just hung out to suffer and twist in the wind.
The airlines apparently plan their operations for optimal, blue-sky conditions, assuming a near-perfect flow of everything. That maximizes their profits – as long as all conditions remain perfect. But that’s simply not how the world is. As sure as the sun will rise, there are going to be weather and other operational disruptions, yet the airlines do not plan (much) for that, and the results are exactly what you see there right now. These “meltdowns” happen many times each year – why all the shock and outrage? While the exact dates and times the meltdowns occur can not be accurately predicted, it is an absolute certainty that various conditions (weather, supply-chain shortages, labor actions, etc.) are going to occur. But the businesses can be more profitable if they just let shit happen and customers suffer the consequences of their intentional, systematic failure to plan. The solutions may be expensive (boo hoo, no more $19 tickets, maybe the C-suite has to take a haircut), but solutions are not difficult to build in: they just need more slack in their systems. Failing to adjust their plans for that is not some act of god, it’s a corporate choice, consciously made by the suits. Management is 100% responsible for this.
Yes, we need an EU261 equivalent in the US.
AMS seems at the forefront of these meltdowns over the past 5 years. Of all the airports in the EU it’s become a thing with them. I am really wondering what the issue is internally that this keeps happening.
At least passengers can get reimbursement for accommodations, meals and other expenses. If this happened in the US, they’d be on their own.
Will passengers get EU261 compensation?
If they can, I sure hope they do. I wish the US had an EU261. And kudos to Canada for adopting something similar with their version, called the APPR.
Canada is a stupid sh1thole country that is so bent out of shape about the US. They are so jealous that prices are high in Canada because Canadians like to rip each other off.
Prince George is the largest airport outside of thr Vancouver Victoria area but their airfares are so high they could compensate passengers and still make a huge profit. …and no monopoly because both large airlines rip passengers off.
Stupid Canada also built the largest airport in Canada at Mirabel and had to tear down the terminal because no airlines wanted to use it.
Ahh, there it is. This is the Canadian derek who hates Canada. LOL. There was a different Derek somewhere, maybe it was LALF, or OMAAT, or VFTW, etc., and he was like ‘I’m not *that* derek.’
Like, please, show me on the doll where Canada hurt you. I’ve visited more than any other country, and have really enjoyed my time there. I couldn’t disagree more with your negative perspectives about it.
I have a love hate feeling about Canada. It’s a great country. It’s also a sh1thole country. In many ways, the United States is better. Canada likes to say its health care is better but that is a bunch of lies. American health care is way better though the insurance situation can require some knowledge and strategy to maneuver through.
With other countries, not so extreme. Japan is nice except they used to have a lot of cruel war criminals that ran the place. France is also nice but has sort of a primitive standard of living. The quality of water heaters can be poor. Electricity is not reliable because of strikes (industrial action by workers). They shut off the power for about 2 hours on a daily basis for a few days to demand higher wages.
I’d much rather have Canada’s healthcare system as an average American. If you have unlimited money, sure, the US healthcare system will cater to your every whim.
Canada (or at least British Columbia) is so cheap that if you get Covid, you cannot get Paxlovid unless you are elderly with cancer. They don’t stick with the science but stick with the cheapest and underfunded. You cannot even offer to pay $1 million for Paxlovid. That is because they ban private purchase of health care. You must suffer like everyone else. On the other hand, Paxlovid is often free in the U.S. The cancer survival rate is also better in the United States. So Canada is better if you are not very sick and like free but if you are sick and want decent care, the United States is way better.
Paxlovid? Odd strawman, but ok. We don’t get it in the USA, either, unless you are elderly (and actually need it), or you bribe a ‘concierge’ doctor to write you an unnecessary prescription, then pay excessively out of pocket.
Cancer? Unless you’re a centi-millionaire, or have top-rated insurance, that’ll bankrupt you, if you even survive it, in the USA. Even if our corporations found a cure for most types, they’d hold it back, because… profits.
I’m an extremely seasoned traveler. I was there over the weekend. Total trainwreck. My flight was cancelled 3 days in a row, and one of the cancellations was after 5 hours on the tarmac (no push back operators available, and the de icing reservation software broke down and they couldn’t find anyone to fix it). The issue is not only the tough call to invest more in cold weather equipment that might not be used, it is mainly the total indifference of so many of the people in the system. When we de-planed after the second cancellation, after 10PM – there was not ONE KLM rep available in the terminal – they just all went home. Stranded passengers wandering around like zombies not knowing what to do – many with luggage tied up in the system and not even a jacket as they arrived from warm weather countries. There was an unaccompanied minor on the flight, when the flight was cancelled there was no one to take care of him. The CEO’s of Schiphol and KLM are no where to be seen, no crisis management plan. I would predict that a few heads may roll after this debacle, if only for the total lack of customer centric culture from anyone.
‘extremely seasoned’ … sounds like a spicy dish!
In all seriousness, did you get EU-261? Or, are the airlines weaseling out of it, playing the blame-game, etc.
Did you have travel insurance? Are you able to take alternative transportation? Eurostar to BRU/CDG?
I flew into AMS on Saturday, the first day drama started. As my flight was delayed for a few hours I expected to see snow upon arrival. What I saw instead was no snow at all. No idea what caused the problems there. In fact, when I arrived it was sunny with blue skies in AMS. In the terminal there were long lines of people waiting to get rebooked.
My departure flight was booked for 7/1. Reading how the drama further evolved on Sunday and Monday, I decided on Tuesday to cancel my flight and depart from DUS instead where things were totally normal yesterday morning.
It left me with the impression that the Schiphol management had become such firm believers in global warming that they must have concluded that Schiphol would never see snow again and were thus totally unprepared.
The rodent population must be going crazy over the invasion of humans.
If I may, the plural of Euro is Euro not Euros.
Thanks, will update.
Wow. I actually didn’t know that – even I’ve lived in the EU for almost my entire life.
I think that’s debatable. Yes, the EU adopted Euro/Cent as the ‘official’ plural forms of the currency, but that was mainly done to avoid a string of different pluralization for the various languages used on the notes (or coins). It wasn’t a directive that English speakers omit the ‘s.’ In fact, most European languages that use an ‘s’ to pluralize officially say ‘Euros”; notably Spanish, French, and Portuguese. In fact, the Oxford English dictionary even recommends using Euros/Cents.
IMO, it’s incorrect parlance to omit the s. We don’t pluralize some currencies (Baht, Kip, Kuai, Rand) because you wouldn’t in the language of which the name of the currency was derived. However, the Euro was manufactured to be a multi-national, multilingual currency, and I don’t think a decision made by bureaucrats in Brussels in the mid-1990s should trump the reality of a majority of English speakers globally.
/rant… I love semantics.
Remember that in English language, both “euro” and “euros” are the correct plural of “euro,” though “euro” tends to be less popular in everyday speech. However, EU legislators use the plural “euro.”
Most of the dictionaries and style guides list both forms:
Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary: euros, euro
Collins Dictionary: euros
Cambridge Dictionary: euros
Dictionary.com: euros, euro
The Free Dictionary: euros, euro
Encarta Essential English Dictionary: euro, euros
Macmillan Dictionary: euros, euro
New Oxford Style Manual: euros, euro
Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition): euros (but euro in EU documents)
European Commission English Style Guide: “Where appropriate, it [the euro] takes the plural ‘s’”
AMS is a total… Schipol! (I pronounce it like sh*thole, though I actually really like the airport, except that runway that’s like a mile away.)
it was 3 C in Amsterdam today, with blue skies and almost no wind
the Authorities have lost their minds
planes take off in Edmonton, AB in – 20C with 2 feet of snow and high winds on a consistent basis
Europe is becoming wussified
Matthew you should look into what’s happening to the January 3 DL27 flight. Passenger and plane are still stuck in Anchorage, 48 hours later. First a diversion (with a 3 hour backtrack to Anchorage instead of continuing onto major Japanese cities – probably closer with better infrastructure), second day a mechanical issue + incomplete paperwork that resulted in crew timing out, and today a 2 hour delay (and counting!). Delta provided hotels and a grand total of $12 in meal vouchers. Woohoo!
to be fair, the Netherlands doesn’t get snow very often. That said, they clearly were and are unprepared for major winter weather when it comes. and there isn’t much you can do when there isn’t even deicing fluid available in the country.
Thankfully, we are now in the very slow period for TATL travel so I suspect that there are plenty of ways to reroute people who haven’t started their journeys. DL and KL are both operating some of their TATL flights and CDG is doing better than AMS so there are alternatives by air.
The comment from HC above highlights how little some people understand airline operations. first, planes divert to mechanicals over the N. Pacific more often than you imagine.
If you simply look at the flight track when it diverted, you can see what is immediately to the west -which is Russia.
It makes zero sense to run the risk of potentially diverting to Russia if things fall apart; there are plenty of airports along the Aleutians that can handle widebody diversions and they are far closer than any Japanese city.
oh, and the extra section from ANC to ICN is taxiing for takeoff as I write
Good call, Tim. Do not divert to Russia. Ever. Especially not now. KA007 would like a word, too.
On AMS, I flew CDG-AMS on AF recently, and we had a 30-45 minute delay for ‘fog’ at AMS, but, they still got it done. And, AMS-LCY on KL; other than the bus-ride to the E190, all went well. You win some, you lose some. They’ll recover.
Snow at Schipol is hardly a rare event, so surely they should be able to manage it? Chitose airport keeps humming along during heavy Hokkaido snowfall, and Yakutsk stays open when it’s -60C.
Have you ever been in Atlanta, Georgia when they get 1 inch of snow? Apocalypse.
Five days of nerve-wracking mayhem at AMS…
Poor Amsterdam LOL, Go woke, Go broke, Enjoy your wokeness you clowns
This literally has nothing to do with ‘woke’ or any culture-war nonsense, but ok. Go stroop-yourself!
ALTERNATE THEORY: AMS is dragging its feet on recovery. The airport & government made noises about AMS being overwhelmed and environmental considerations. Just last year (2025), JetBlue was having a hell of a time getting slots at the airport; the administration had to step in and force the issue.
Side note: IIRC, B6 is stepping away from its JFK > AMS service (too much completion) but holding on to BOS > AMS flights.