AMSTERDAM, March 11 (Reuters) – The Dutch Supreme Court on Wednesday scrapped a government decision to limit the number of flights at Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport, one of Europe’s busiest hubs.
The court said the 2024 decision to limit the number of flights to 478,000 per year, made in an effort to cut noise pollution, had not been properly motivated.
The government said the judgment underscored the need for new regulations it is developing to strengthen the legal basis of its air-traffic policies.
Airlines had appealed the government’s decision as they said it went too far, while climate activists and people living near the airport had appealed for more restrictive action.
The court said the government decision had failed to take into account that different airplanes produce different levels of noise, thereby setting an inappropriate general cap on the number of flights.
It said it was also unclear that the installed cap would in fact lead to the intended reduction in noise pollution.
The court did allow a reduction of nighttime flights, as none of the parties had appealed that part of the government’s decision.
(Reporting by Bart Meijer. Editing by Mark Potter and Louise Heavens)
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