SCHIPHOL AIRPORT
Bairdstravel favourite airport . Well sign posted .Easy to get about and tons of places to eat and drink.
Schiphol is an important European airport, ranking as Europe’s 3rd largest and the world’s 14th largest for cargo tonnage. It also ranks as the world’s 3rd largest by international passenger traffic as well as Europe’s 5th and the world’s 14th busiest by overall passenger volume.
Additionally, Schiphol ranks as Europe’s 5th and the world’s 16th busiest airport by number of flights. Schiphol's main competitors as in passenger and cargo throughput with London Heathrow Airport in the United Kingdom, Frankfurt Airport in Germany, Paris-Charles de Gaulle Airport in France and Madrid Barajas Airport in Spain. In 2007, Schiphol handled 47,793,602 passengers, ranking fifth in Europe behind London, Paris, Frankfurt and Madrid.
There are 188 loading slots in the whole airport. About 68% of the passenger flights were to Europe, almost 21% of its passengers travelled on intercontinental flights and 11% to Asia; cargo was mainly headed to Asia (44%) and North America (20%). In the same year, Schiphol handled 1,566,828 tons of cargo, ranked third in Europe behind Paris and Frankfurt. In 2005 direct flights were operated to more than 260 destinations in 91 countries. The airport is one out of four airports in the world to have a rating of four stars in Skytrax's grading system.
Schiphol has five main runways, plus one used mainly by general aviation aircraft. The latest of these, the Polderbaan (nicknamed the "fifth runway", although it is the sixth if the small runway is included) was completed in 2003. Plans have been made for a seventh runway.
The airport is built as one large terminal, split into three large departure halls, which converge again once airside. The most recent of these was completed in 1994, and expanded in 2007 with a new part, named Terminal 4, although this part is not recognised as a separate building. Plans for further terminal expansion exist, including the construction of a separate new terminal between the Zwanenburgbaan and Polderbaan runways that would end the one-terminal concept.
Because of intense traffic and high landing fees, some low cost carriers decided to move their flights to smaller airports, such as Rotterdam and Eindhoven. Many low cost carriers (like easyJet, SkyEurope, and Bmibaby) continue to operate from Schiphol, using the low-cost H-pier.
Schiphol is the home base of KLM (Royal Dutch Airlines), Arkefly, Martinair and Transavia.com, and a hub for Northwest Airlines in cooperation with KLM.