Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport is facing massive disruption for the fourth day running as severe winter weather continues to paralyze operations at one of the world’s busiest airports, which normally serves around 3.2 million passengers every month.
Tens of thousands of passengers have been left stranded for days, forced to sleep on airport concourses or find hotel rooms themselves after airline customer service desks were swamped and tempers flared.
KLM cancels 50%+ of all flights
The Dutch flag carrier KLM Royal Dutch Airlines is having a very rough start to 2026 and has already been forced to cancel more than 1,120 flights since January 2 because of persistent winter weather that has severely affected operations at its Amsterdam Schiphol hub.
Rather unusually, the Netherlands is facing a prolonged period of snowy and icy weather that has put the Schiphol Airport under intense pressure. Unfortunately, operations quickly began to buckle under that pressure, and the situation doesn’t look like it’s going to improve on Monday.
Since Friday, KLM has been forced to delay or cancel thousands of flights:
- January 2: Cancelled 207 flights and delayed 368 flights.
- January 3: Cancelled 278 flights and delayed 319 flights.
- January 4: Cancelled 386 flights and delayed 244 flights.
- January 5: Cancelled 300 flights and delayed 244 flights.
In a statement, the beleaguered airline said, “We understand this is inconvenient for our customers. We advise them to keep checking the latest flight information. We are working hard to rebook passengers on the next available flight.”
As of 8:30 am on Monday, the airline had already cancelled 300 flights but warned that this number would likely increase as the day went on.
Of course, it’s not just KLM that has been affected by the weather conditions at Schiphol, and most airlines are facing extreme difficulties operating their scheduled flights to the airport.
Europe’s air traffic control service says ‘no improvement is possible’
Unfortunately, the situation doesn’t look like it’s going to improve over the next couple of days, and Europe’s air traffic control service, Eurocontrol, has warned that “no improvements are possible” for delays and cancellations into and out of Schiphol for the rest of Monday.
In its daily ‘tactical update,’ Eurocontrol explained the current conditions at Schiphol:
- High delays for arrivals due to adverse weather conditions (snow and de-icing).
- The weather causes a significant outbound bottleneck, so inbound capacity is reduced to balance demand.
- A low-pressure area over the North Sea will drive a northerly flow that will affect the Netherlands and NW-Germany with wintry/snow showers.
Schiphol Airport has ordered airlines to slash planned flights by 50% for the remainder of Monday.
Tempers flare among frustrated passengers
Tens of thousands of passengers have now been stranded in Amsterdam for days, and tempers amongst tired and frustrated passengers are beginning to boil over, with some angry passengers hurling abuse at airline workers and even attacking airport counters.
Some of these ugly scenes have been caught on TikTok
@worldtourist40 Tensions at Schiphol due to weather related delays #schiphol #airport #delays #cancellations #amsterdam ♬ original sound – worldtourist
@tvparodym Yeah never booking klm ever again #amaterdam #airports ♬ Jet2 Advert – ✈️A7-BBH | MAN 🇬🇧
To make matters worse, passengers have reported being denied assistance, like hotel accommodation, for overnight delays because airlines have exhausted their allocation of hotel rooms that they can give stranded passengers.
Tens of thousands of passengers have also been separated from their checked luggage for days, with piles of bags mounting up in baggage reclaim halls.
What’s causing the disruption?
The operator of Schiphol Airport has so far been silent over why it is struggling so badly to deal with the winter weather, although the snow and icy conditions are causing transport chaos across the Netherlands.
It appears that this could be a case in which Amsterdam Schiphol simply doesn’t have the resources for such a prolonged period of severe winter weather.
Airports in regions that have heavy snow every year, like clockwork, heavily invest in snow ploughs and deicing equipment to keep airfield operations running, although even then, flights can be delayed as operations are slowed down or ‘regulated’ in aviation speak.
Schiphol has to deal with cold and ice every year, but not even remotely close to the scale it is currently experiencing.
As a point of comparison, London Heathrow Airport generally experiences very similar conditions to Amsterdam. Back in December 2011, Heathrow Airport came to a complete halt when “too much snow” fell on the airfield.
Airline bosses slammed the owners of Heathrow, who had failed to buy enough winter equipment to keep the airport running. Heathrow ended up investing heavily for future winter weather events, but the equipment is rarely needed.
