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SCHIPHOL AIRPORT

Schiphol Airport
Luchthaven Schiphol
IATA: AMS - ICAO: EHAM
Summary
Airport type Civil
Operator Schiphol Group
Serves Amsterdam
Elevation AMSL -11 ft (-3 m)
Coordinates 52°18′31″N, 4°45′50″E
Runways
Direction Length Surface
ft m
18R/36L 12,467 3,800 Asphalt
06/24 11,483 3,500 Asphalt
09/27 11,329 3,453 Asphalt
18L/36R 11,155 3,400 Asphalt
18C/36C 10,826 3,300 Asphalt
04/22 6,608 2,014 Asphalt

Schiphol (IATA: AMS, ICAO: EHAM) (municipality Haarlemmermeer) is the Netherlands' main airport. Located south of Amsterdam (52°18′31″N, 4°45′50″E), Schiphol aims to be a European mainport, competing in passenger and cargo throughput with Heathrow International Airport in London, UK, Frankfurt International Airport in Frankfurt am Main, Germany and Charles de Gaulle International Airport in Roissy, France.

In 2004, Schiphol ranked fourth in Europe in terms of passenger traffic with 42,541,000 passengers, behind London Heathrow (67,344,000), Paris Charles de Gaulle (51,260,000) and Frankfurt International Airport (51,098,000).

Schiphol has 5 main runways, plus 1 used mainly by general aviation aircraft. The "fifth runway" (really the sixth) was completed in 2003. Plans have already been made for a seventh runway.

The airport is built as one large terminal split into three large departure halls, the most recent having been completed in 1994, which converge again once airside. There are plans for further terminal expansion.

Because of the intense traffic and high landing and parking fees at Schiphol, more and more holiday-carriers have moved some of their flights to smaller airports, such as Groningen, Rotterdam, Eindhoven and Maastricht.

Schiphol is the home base of KLM (Royal Dutch Airlines), Martinair and Transavia, and a hub for Northwest Airlines.

Schiphol has large shopping areas as a source of revenue and as an additional attractant to air-carrier passengers. Schiphol Plaza is the shopping centre before customs, hence not only for air travellers, but also for people who just change train here, etc. There is a regular-size supermarket, Food Village, that is open until midnight seven days a week.

Schiphol is the world's lowest major commercial airport. The Schiphol ATC tower, with a height of 101 m, was the tallest in the world when constructed in 1991. Its base is actually 5 m below sea level.

Schiphol also has its own mortuary, where deceased people can be handled and kept before departure or after arrival.

Contents

Railway

The Dutch Railways operate a major passenger train station directly underneath the passenger terminal complex, see Schiphol (railway station).

History

Schiphol started early last century as a military airbase, consisting only of a few barracks and a mudpool serving as platform/runways. When civil aircraft started to make use of the field, it was often called Schiphol-les-bains. The Fokker aircraft manufacturer started a factory near Schiphol airport in 1951.

Schiphol's name means "ship hole". It is part of the Haarlemmermeerpolder, which before around 1850 was a large lake. Its original name was 'schiphel' meaning 'ship hell', because many ships mysteriously got lost in the lake.

Accidents

  • November 14, 1946 - A Douglas C-47 operated by KLM coming from London approached Schiphol during bad weather conditions. The first two attempts to land failed. During the third the pilot realised that the airplane wasn't lined up properly with the runway. A sharp left turn was made at low speed, causing the left wing to hit the ground. The airplane crashed and caught fire, killing all 26 people on board, including the plane's crew of five.
  • October 4, 1992 - El Al flight 1862, a Boeing 747 cargo airplane heading to Tel Aviv, suffered from physical engine separation of both right-wing engines (#3 and #4) just after taking off from Schiphol and crashed into an apartment building in the Bijlmer neighbourhood of Amsterdam while attempting to return to the airport. A total of 43 people were killed, including the plane's crew of three and an unidentified "nonrevenue passenger". Many more were injured.
  • April 4, 1994 - Flight KL433 to Cardiff, a Saab 340 operated by KLM Cityhopper, returned to Schiphol after setting the number two engine to flight idle because the crew mistakenly believed that the engine suffered from low oil pressure, this because of a faulty warning light. On final approach at a height of 90 feet, the captain decided to go-around and gave full throttle, however only on the number one engine leaving the other in flight idle. Because of this, the airplane rolled to the right, pitched up, stalled and hit the ground at 80 degrees bank. Of the twenty-four people on board, three were killed including the captain. Nine others were seriously injured.
  • October 27, 2005 - A fire broke out at the airport's detention center, killing 11 people and injuring 15. The complex was holding 350 people at the time of the incident.

Destinations

NOTE: These are not definite; very few airlines have a daily hall; this is based on regularity.

Departure Hall 1

Air Traffic Control Towers (ATCTs) at Schiphol Airport
Air Traffic Control Towers (ATCTs) at Schiphol Airport

Hall B

Hall C

Departure Hall 2

Hall D

  • Aer Lingus (Dublin, Cork)
  • Aeroflot (Moscow-Sheremetyevo)
  • Armavia (Yerevan)
  • bmi (Aberdeen, London-Heathrow, Southampton [starts October 29, 2006])
  • British Airways (London-Heathrow, London-Gatwick)
  • Bulgaria Air (Sofia)
  • Croatia Airlines (Zagreb)
  • Czech Airlines (Prague)
  • Cyprus Airways (Larnaca, Paphos)
  • European Air Express (Münster/Osnabrück)
  • flyLal (Palanga, Vilnius)
  • Jat Airways (Belgrade)
  • KLM Royal Dutch Airlines (Non-Schengen leave from one half of D, Schengen leave from the other) Aberdeen, Athens, Bahrain, Barcelona, Birmingham, Bucharest, Budapest, Copenhagen, Edinburgh, Geneva, Helsinki, Istanbul-Atatürk, Kiev-Borispol, Lisbon, London-Heathrow, Luxembourg, Madrid, Manchester, Milan-Linate, Milan-Malpensa, Moscow, Munich, Nice, Oslo, Paris-Charles de Gaulle, Prague, Rome-Fiumicino, Rotterdam, St. Petersburg (RU), Sofia, Stockholm, Stuttgart, Tallinn, Tbilsi, Tehran, Thessaloniki, Venice, Vienna, Warsaw, Zurich)
    • KLM Cityhopper (Aberdeen, Bergen, Berlin-Tegel, Billund, Bremen, Bristol, Brussels, Cardiff, Cologne/Bonn, Durham Tees Valley, Düsseldorf, Edinburgh, Eindhoven, Frankfurt, Glasgow, Hamburg, Hanover, Humberside, Leeds/Bradford, London-City, Luxembourg, Manchester (UK), Munich, Newcastle, Nice, Norwich, Nuremberg, Stavanger, Trondheim, Zurich)
  • SkyEurope (Bratislava, Budapest, Innsbruck, Kraków, Prague)
  • Malév Hungarian Airlines (Budapest)
  • Martinair (Shorthaul)
  • Tarom (Bucharest-Otopeni)
  • Ukraine International Airlines (Kiev-Borispol)

Hall E

  • China Southern Airlines (Beijing, Guangzhou)
  • EVA Air (Bangkok, Taipei-Chiang Kai Shek)
  • Japan Airlines (Tokyo-Narita)
  • Kenya Airways (Nairobi)
  • KLM Royal Dutch Airlines (Abu Dhabi, Abuja, Accra, Addis Ababa, Almaty, Amman [ends October 28, 2006], Aruba, Atlanta, Bangkok, Beijing, Bonaire, Cairo, Cape Town, Chengdu, Chicago-O'Hare, Damascus [ends October 28, 2006], Dammam, Dar es Salaam, Delhi, Doha, Dubai, Guayaquil, Hong Kong, Houston-Intercontinental, Hyderabad, Jakarta, Johannesburg, Khartoum, Kilimajaro, Kuala Lumpur, Kuwait City, Lagos, Lima, Los Angeles, Manila, Mexico City, Montréal, Nairobi, Newark, New York-JFK, Osaka-Kansai, Paramaribo/Zanderij, Sint Maarten, Quito, San Francisco, Sao Paulo-Guarulhos, Seoul-Incheon, Shanghai-Pudong, Singapore, Taipei-Chiang Kai Shek, Tel Aviv, Tokyo-Narita, Toronto, Tripoli, Vancouver, Washington-Dulles)
  • Northwest Airlines (Boston, Detroit, Memphis, Minneapolis/St. Paul, Mumbai, Newark [starts November 26, 2006], Seattle/Tacoma)

Departure Hall 3

Hall F

Hall G

Hall H

Varying departure hall

  • Flybe (Exeter, Norwich, Southampton)
  • Thomsonfly (Bournemouth, Cardiff, Coventry, Doncaster-Sheffield)

External links

Maps of Schiphol Airport 52.3095° N 4.762° E

MapQuest out 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 in
Multimap: scale 4M 2M 1M 500k 200k 100k 50k 25k 10k 5k
MSN Europe out 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0 in
MSN World Atlas out 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0 in
Google satellite image