Op-Ed: “Beyond the Runway: Understanding Competition Law Impacts of Schiphol Slot Reduction” by Tuvana Aras and David van Wamel

Although progress is being made, aviation interests and environmental considerations still often collide. This has arguably been the case in the ‘Schiphol slot-reduction saga’, in which the Dutch Government, to combat noise pollution, drafted a plan to reduce the number of flight movements at Amsterdam Schiphol Airport (‘Schiphol Airport’) from 500,000 to 440,000 per year. The plan would have resulted in the reduction of slots available at Schiphol Airport. The issue has not only caused discord from an operational and aero-political point of view but also led to an interesting chain of events in the field of EU competition law.

The Dutch Government eventually retracted the reduction plan. Following this decision, th