The new year has got off to a challenging start for Amsterdam Schiphol Airport (AMS), with the Netherlands’ main air hub crippled by adverse winter weather for several days in a row. Movements at the facility have been limited due to snowfall, with the slower pace of operations leading to congested taxiways at what is normally one of the busiest airports in all of Europe. This, in some cases, has led to taxis lasting several hours.

Among the most notable examples of this phenomenon, as highlighted yesterday by Aaron Rheins on Instagram, involved a KLM Airbus A321neo that was scheduled to depart Amsterdam Schiphol for London Heathrow Airport (LHR) yesterday morning. The flight in question pushed back with a relatively small delay, but the congested taxiways and worsening weather conditions meant that, two hours later, it was back at its gate in Amsterdam.

Taxi To Nowhere

KLM flight KL1003 is a scheduled daily flight that the Dutch flag carrier and SkyTeam member operates between the capital cities of the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. Its planned departure time is 8:35 am, with its arrival penciled in for 9:00 am local time, one hour and 25 minutes later. Flightradar24 shows that, yesterday, this flight was operated by an Airbus A321neo registered as PH-AXA, and pushed back at 9:05 am.

Given the severe weather disruption that has been wreaking havoc at Amsterdam Schiphol Airport in recent days, this is a relatively minimal delay. However, as pictured above, it never left the ground, circling the airfield twice (with slight differences on the western part of its anticlockwise route each time) before returning to a gate over two hours later, at 11:29 am local time. The airport’s present guidance on the severe weather reads as follows:

« Due to persistent winter weather, only limited air traffic is possible to and from Schiphol. Our snow crews are working around the clock to keep the runways clear, and aircraft are being carefully de-iced. »

KLM’s Response To The Adverse Winter Weather

After the Airbus A321neo’s two-hour taxi to nowhere, flight KL1003 was eventually canceled alongside the return leg from London Heathrow Airport, with PH-AXA not taking to the skies until 6:59 pm on Monday, January 5. This flight, KL1141 to Dublin Airport (DUB) in the Republic of Ireland, was also severely delayed, having been scheduled to take off at 3:40 pm. The return leg, KL1142 from Dublin Airport, operated almost four hours late.

KLM is the dominant operator at Amsterdam Schiphol Airport, with over 57.85% of the facility’s scheduled departures this month (9,816 out of 16,967) according to Cirium, an aviation analytics company. As such, it has been the worst-affected airline by the adverse weather that has plagued the Dutch hub since the turn of the new year, with FlightAware showing that 435 of its flights were canceled yesterday, alongside another 169 that were delayed.

With this in mind, KLM is advising passengers that, amid the increased delays and cancellations, and « due to limited capacity across airlines, crew scheduling adjustments, and operational constraints caused by the weather, rebooking is taking longer than usual. » The carrier has also suspended its Unaccompanied Minor program, with such travelers unable to travel through Schiphol until January 11 to prevent them from being stranded.

An Emirates Airbus A380 Also Faced A Long Taxi On Arrival In Amsterdam

Of course, KLM is far from the only carrier impacted by Schiphol’s operational disruption, with the facility advising more generally that « the wintry conditions are expected to cause disruptions to the flight schedule in the coming days, [which] may result in delays and cancellations. » Among the worst delays of the flights that did operate yesterday impacted an Emirates Airbus A380 that flew in from Dubai International Airport (DXB).

As detailed on X by Flightradar24, Emirates flight EK147 had to wait three hours after landing in Amsterdam before being able to taxi to its stand, as all three of the airport’s A380-suitable gates were occupied. The return flight, EK148, eventually left the Dutch capital more than seven hours late after being de-iced.