More air passengers at the beginning of 2025, significantly fewer via Maastricht

In the past quarter, 16.6 million passengers travelled by plane to and from the five airports in the Netherlands.

This is more than a 2% increase, compared with the same period a year earlier, reports the Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS).

The increase is attributed to Schiphol and Rotterdam The Hague Airport. The number of people flying via Maastricht Aachen Airport decreased by nearly 50%.

Schiphol processed 14.8 million passengers from January to March, almost 3 percent more than in the same period a year earlier. The largest airport in the country was thus responsible for processing more than 89% of all air passengers to and from our country. The number of people travelling by plane to and from Rotterdam The Hague Airport increased by 2.5%.

The other three airports - Eindhoven Airport, Groningen Airport Eelde, and Maastricht Aachen Airport - processed fewer passengers at the beginning of this year. The number of passengers to and from Maastricht showed a particularly strong decline, according to CBS, of no less than 47%. The CBS attributes this decline to the number of winter destinations from this airport, which was much lower in the first quarter than a year earlier. Via Eindhoven and Eelde, respectively 2.8 percent and 1.7 percent fewer people flew.

CBS also reports that the amount of air cargo in the first quarter decreased by more than 8% to 352,000 tons, 345,000 tons of which were handled via Amsterdam, the other 7,000 tons via Maastricht. Most goods were transported to and from China, the United States, and the United Arab Emirates, about 44% of the total.