Perhaps it caved to pressure from the airlines, or was fearful of retribution, or just didn’t want to run afoul of European aviation law.
Or maybe it was a combination of all three.
No matter what, the Dutch government made the right choice to back off on its plan to restrict the number of flights into Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport.
In theory, you can definitely understand the motivation. Officials wanted to cut down on the environmental impact and better control tourism. After all, this is the third-largest airport in Europe.
It was noble, of course.
But not at the expense of airport workers and airlines, such as the Netherlands flag carrier KLM Royal Dutch Airlines.
Oh, the United States government rattled its saber, as did the European Union. Much of it was done on behalf of JetBlue Airways—which just started a new route to Amsterdam—and Delta Air Lines.
Airlines in the U.S. definitely had a vested interest.
But putting a cap on the number of flights in and out of Amsterdam was not the answer. It’s important to make the Netherlands a livable place and this was a move in the right direction. But it wasn’t a step. It was more like a giant leap all at once. The Dutch government nonetheless called its decision to scrap the plan "a bitter pill."
They will have to live with the aftertaste, especially people who are against noise pollution and airplane emissions.
It’s one thing to cut back. It’s quite another to mess with somebody else’s business, as the Dutch government wanted to do, and exclude JetBlue. That’s when phrases like "fair trade agreements," "open skies" and "retaliation" were thrown around.
The Netherlands ended up realizing it had little to no support for the initiative.
The decision not to restrict airplanes was the right decision for now. Everything is a negotiation and maybe all sides will come to a happy medium.
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