KLM is very disenchanted that Schiphol only indicated on Friday, 16 September that it would not be able to handle the number of passengers boarding in Amsterdam on Saturday 17, Sunday 18 and Monday, 19 September. The airport has requested KLM to reduce these passenger numbers. This request comes over and above the cancellations already made for September at the airport’s earlier request.

In order to continue to guarantee the safety of passengers and crew at the airport and in operations, KLM will therefore be forced to cancel 34 KLC and KLM flights to comply with Schiphol’s request for today (Saturday). These flights were all set to depart between 09:30 and 17:00 hours with a significant number of passengers boarding in Amsterdam. In order to still carry our passengers back from their destinations, these flights will be departing empty. This has been a difficult choice, but it is also the only way to comply with the airport’s request to limit the number of passengers boarding, reduce queues at Security, enable returning passengers to travel as expected and ease pressure on operations. We are still assessing which flights are eligible for cancellation on Sunday and Monday.

Our passengers were notified on Friday evening. Any customers affected by these cancellations will be rebooked by KLM within the options at its disposal. Unfortunately, KLM cannot currently guarantee a same-day rebooking. Customers who incur costs as a result of changing or cancelling their flights due to Schiphol’s measures will be compensated in the customary manner.

KLM understands that these measures are again highly inconvenient for passengers. We therefore wish to stress that these circumstances are unfortunately beyond KLM’s control. Given the short period of notice provided by Schiphol and the nature of its request, our ability to respond is very limited.

KLM would like to apologise once again for the consequences of these unexpected measures taken by Amsterdam Airport Schiphol. We would also like to reiterate our call for Schiphol to swiftly and effectively restore order at the airport so that passengers and airlines know what they are going to have to contend with – also in the longer term.