AMS to increase airline charges, other airports to follow

Following Amsterdam Airport Schiphol’s (AMS) proposal to increase airport charges by 40% by 2025 to compensate for missed income caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, other airports, including Frankfurt Airport (FRA), may follow suit, despite backlash from carriers and the Air Cargo Netherlands (ACN) trade association. AMS proposed a 9% increase in airport charges for both passenger aircraft and full freighters starting in 2022, followed by 14% in 2023, and another 14% in 2024, Maarten van As, managing director at ACN, told Air Cargo World . “Whilst we understand the difficult position the airport finds itself in, we feel it inappropriate to lay the pain in this way predominantly with the aviation industry which was also hit extremely hard during the corona crisis, [so] we are calling for a reasonable approach,” van As said. “This very substantial increase in charges could endanger Schiphol’s position as a leading cargo hub.” [caption id="attachment_67136" align="alignright" width="339"] Cargo is loaded onto the main deck of a freighter at Amsterdam Schiphol (AMS). Photo: AMS[/caption] Pre-pandemic, there was a shortage of slots for full freighter operations at AMS, van As said. In turn, cargo flights began relocating to other airports such as Brussels (BRU) and Liege (LGG), resulting in declines in cargo flights of 10% and 13%, in 2018 and 2019, respectively. Van As further noted that while there is currently no shortage of slots at AMS due to the COVID-19 crisis, they are considered ad hoc slots while “air cargo partners are seeking ‘real’ slots in order [to] accumulate historical rights upon which they will be able to base their operations.” As a result, the combination of slot shortages for full freighters and the drastic increase in fees might damage AMS as a destination for freight, van As said. Several pre-consultation meetings took place last week to discuss the proposed increase of charges for 2022-2024, the “too often” exceeding of budgets and lack of budget control, as well as the concept of “sharing the pain” caused by the pandemic, van As said. While ACN was surprised that AMS did not change its position following the pre-consultation meetings, van As noted that ACN will discuss meeting outcomes and next steps with its members and BARIN, an industry association for airlines with business in The Netherlands. AMS is also receiving some backlash from carriers, including KLM Cargo, which is also in discussion with the Schiphol Group to provide a more proportional adjusted rate increase. “KLM doesn’t find the proposed increase in airport charges by Schiphol of cumulatively more than 40% acceptable for the next three years,” a KLM spokesperson told Air Cargo World . “Given the under coverage in 2020 as a result of COVID-19, KLM can understand some increase in fares, but KLM considers these proposed rate increases by Schiphol to be disproportionate and unwise because they will nip the fledgling recovery in the bud and endanger the position of the Netherlands.” Meanwhile, FRA recently received approval for a 4.3% increase in airport charges for next year, Max Conrady, vice president of cargo development at the airport, told Air Cargo World. However, FRA plans to implement a recovery program as well to incentivize the return of air traffic to FRA. Although Conrady did not elaborate on any program details at the time, he noted that airlines that substantially increase air traffic to FRA will have the opportunity to participate in the recovery program. FRA and AMS ranked at No. 14 and No. 18, respectively, in Air Cargo World ’s latest Top 50 Cargo Airports ranking based on 2020 throughput. Voting is now open for the 2021 Air Cargo Executive of the Year. Vote for one of our finalists or nominate another executive by Monday, Oct. 18! Click here to vote.

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