Amsterdam Flights Halted On ATC Comms Fault

Flights at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport were delayed on Wednesday after a communications problem at Dutch air traffic control stopped all departures and arrivals.

Air Traffic Control Netherlands (LVNL) tweeted that its communications system had failed, but a back up system had allowed some flights to land. To guarantee safety it said it had “phased out” air traffic until the problem was fixed.

Schiphol airport announced that “there is no incoming and outgoing flight traffic at our airport. Air traffic control is investigating this matter.”

The lunchtime outage lasted about an hour, but knock-on flight delays lasted for hours after communications were restored.

“The communication system of Air Traffic Control is stable again. Air traffic is being restarted. It will take some time before the situation at our airport is running as normal again, so please check your airline for current flight information,” Dutch ATC said.

LVNL said it is investigating the cause of the fault and that safety was not compromised.

Schiphol is Europe’s third busiest airport after London Heathrow and Paris Charles de Gaulle. It handled 63.6 million passengers in 2016.