Amsterdam Schiphol Airport

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{| class="infobox bordered" style="width: 220px; font-size: 95%;" |- ! colspan="4" style="text-align: center; background-color: #4682B4; color: white;" |Schiphol Airport |- |align="center" colspan="4"|

Schiphol (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).

KLM fleet at Schiphol

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

1 Railway
2 History

2.1 Accidents

3 Destinations

3.1 Departure Hall 1

3.1.1 Pier B
3.1.2 Pier C

3.2 Departure Hall 2

3.2.1 Pier D
3.2.2 Pier E

3.3 Departure Hall 3

3.3.1 Hall F
3.3.2 Hall G
3.3.3 Hall H

3.4 Varying departure hall

4 External links

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. The name originally meant a part of that lake: 't Schiphol in old maps of the area.

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

Schiphol Airport's observation deck

Air Traffic Control Towers (ATCTs) at Schiphol Airport

Pier B

Alitalia (Milan-Malpensa, Rome-Fiumicino, Venice)
Austrian Airlines (Vienna)
Finnair (Helsinki)
Iberia (Barcelona, Madrid)
Lufthansa (Frankfurt, Munich)
Air Dolomiti
Olympic Airlines (Athens)
SAS Braathens (Oslo-Gardemoen)
Scandinavian Airlines (Copenhagen, Stockholm-Arlanda)
Spanair (Barcelona, Madrid)
TAP Portugal (Lisbon, Porto)
Transavia (Alicante, Antalya, Banjul, Barcelona, Berlin-Schönefeld, Bodrum, Copenhagen, Dalaman, Djerba, Faro, Glasgow-Prestwick, Izmir, Las Palma, Madrid, Malaga, Milan-Linate, Monastir, Nice, Palma, Pisa, Reus, Tenerife, Treviso)

Pier C

KLM Royal Dutch Airlines (some Shorthaul mostly Schengen treaty destinations)
Air France (Bordeaux, Marseille, Nice, Lyon, Paris-Charles De Gaulle)
Meridiana (Florence, Turin)

Departure Hall 2

Pier D

Aer Lingus (Dublin, Cork)
Aeroflot (Moscow-Sheremetyevo)
Armavia (Yerevan)
bmi (London-Heathrow, Southampton [starts soon])
British Airways (London-Heathrow, London-Gatwick)
Bulgaria Air (Sofia)
Croatia Airlines (Zagreb)
Czech Airlines (Prague)
Cyprus Airways (Larnaca, Paphos)
flyLal (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, Beirut, Berlin-Tegel, Birmingham (UK), Bristol, Bucharest, Budapest, Cardiff, Copenhagen, Edinburgh, Geneva, Glasgow, Hamburg, Hanover, Helsinki, Istanbul, Kiev, Lisbon, London City, London-Heathrow, Luxembourg, Madrid, Manchester (UK), 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 (Bergen, Brussels, Cardiff, Dusseldorf, Edinburgh, Eindhoven, Frankfurt, Glasgow, Hanover, Luxembourg, Manchester (UK), Munich, Nice, Stavanger, Trondheim. Zurich)
SkyEurope (Slovakia)
Malév Hungarian Airlines (Budapest)
Martinair (Shorthaul)
Tarom Romanian Air Transport (Bucharest)
Ukraine International (Kiev)

Pier 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, Aruba, Atlanta, Bangkok, Beijing, Bonaire, Cairo, Cape Town, Chengdu, Chicago-O'Hare, Damascus, 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, Seattle/Tacoma)

Departure Hall 3

Hall F

Adria Airways (Ljubljana)
Air Baltic (Riga)
Air Moldova (Chişinău)
Armenian Airlines (Yerevan)
China Airlines (Bangkok, Taipei-Chiang Kai Shek)
Georgian Airlines (Tbilsi)
Malaysia Airlines (Kuala Lumpur)
Royal Jordanian (Amman)
Syrian Arab Airlines (Damascus)
KLM Cargo

Hall G

Afriqiyah Airways (Tripoli)
Air Canada (Toronto)
Air Transat (Calgary, Toronto, Vancouver)
ArkeFly (Kos, Puerto Plata, Punta Cana, Rhodes)
Arkia (Tel Aviv)
Continental Airlines (Houston-Intercontinental, Newark)
Delta Air Lines (Atlanta, Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky, New York-JFK)
EgyptAir (Cairo)
El Al (Tel Aviv)
Ethiopian Airlines (Addis Ababa, Rome-Fiumicino)
Fly Air (Antalya, Bodrum)
Inter Express (Antalya, Bodrum, Dalaman)
Iran Air (Tehran-Mehrabad)
Israir (Tel Aviv)
Korean Air (Seoul-Incheon)
LOT (Warsaw)
Martinair (Longhaul)
Onur Air (Ankara, Antalya, Bodrum, Dalaman, Istanbul, Izmir)
Pakistan International Airlines (Islamabad, Karachi, Lahore)
Singapore Airlines (Singapore)
Surinam Airways (Paramaribo/Zanderij)
Turkish Airlines (Ankara, Istanbul)
Tunisair (Tunis)
United Airlines (Chicago-O'Hare, Washington-Dulles)
US Airways (Philadelphia)

Hall H

Bmibaby (Nottingham, Birmingham, Cardiff)
easyJet (Belfast, Bristol, Edinburgh, Liverpool, London-Gatwick, London-Stanstead, London-Luton)
easyJet Switzerland (Geneva)
Jet2.com (Leeds/Bradford, Manchester (UK))
Sky Airlines (Antalya, Berlin Tegel)

Varying departure hall

flybe (Exeter, Norwich, Southampton)
Tyrolean
Thomsonfly (Bournmouth, Cardiff, Doncaster-Sheffield)

External links

[Schiphol International Airport Homepage]
[Schiphol Mortuary] (Dutch only)

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]

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