As plans are developed to ease Amsterdam Schiphol's movements limits, new figures show it handled 1.8 million tonnes of air cargo in 2017, a 5.5 per cent increase on 2016. 

But air freight shipments at the Netherlands' Maastricht/Aachen jumped by 43 per cent to 87,000 tonnes in the same period.

 

Meanwhile, the number of passengers travelling through the five largest Dutch airports continued to expand, reaching 76 million last year, national statistics office CBS said.

 

The total was an increase on the 70 million who used Schiphol, Eindhoven, Rotterdam/The Hague, Groningen and Maastricht/Aachen airports in 2016.

 

The number of takeoffs and landings at Amsterdam Schiphol also rose - by 3.7 per cent to nearly 497,000 - in 2017, near the 500,000 aircraft movements cap that applies until 2020 that was agreed by the government.