Airport Amsterdam-Schiphol

Location
Amsterdam Airport Schiphol is located 14 km (9 miles) south west of downtown Amsterdam, near the community of Haarlemmeer. Passengers arriving by car should take the highway A4/E19 to exit 2 (Luchthaven Schiphol) and from there follow the signs to the airport parking.

Rail passengers can travel directly by train to Schiphol Railway Station, which is directly under the Schiphol Plaza, the central hall of the terminal. Furthermore, from Amsterdam Centraal Station daily services to the airport are operated by NS trains or the bus routes 192, 195, 245 and 358.

History
The airport of ​​Schiphol, which at 3 metres below sea level is the lowest lying airfield in Europe, was first taken into operation in autumn 1916 as a military airport and at first only consisted of a grass runway and a few wooden huts that served as an aircraft hangar. Civilian use of the site began only four years later with a scheduled KLM flight from Amsterdam to London. The building work of the first Schiphol terminals commenced in 1921 and in the course of the next few years, military use of the airport lost in importance.

In 1926, the City of Amsterdam took over the administration of the area and began to expand the airport and to construct a station building. This was completed in time for the opening of the Olympic Summer Games in 1928. In 1935, the area was expanded once again, this time to cover an area three times that of the original. Four paved runways were also built.

In 1940 the airport was heavily bombed, and the station building was completely destroyed. A replica of the building was built in 2005 and can be admired in the Aviodrome in Lelystad.

After the war the airport was re-established relatively quickly at least temporarily and in the summer of 1945, operations could be resumed. Regular air traffic grew very fast and the enormous increase in air traffic meant that the airport had soon reached its full capacities. The airport had to be expanded. The Dutch government then decided that a new major airport was required and at the same time, the city of Rotterdam voiced the need for a separate airport, which was to then take on this central role in Dutch air transport. In 1949, however, the Dutch government decided to expand the site in Schiphol to the south and therefore tie up all international flights and freight traffic in the coming decades with "Luchthaven Schiphol”.

In 1963, construction of the station building commenced and was completed only four years later. In 1977 Schiphol was again able to register a significant growth in cargo and passenger numbers and plans went ahead with the construction of a freight station and other offices in the south of the site.

Schiphol continued to grow and so in 1990, a master plan by the famous Dutch architects Benthem Crouwel was drawn up, which planned to double the existing size of the station building and to build a new tower and new terminal, as well as the construction of what is now flight region 3. The new control tower could already be taken into operation in 1991, which at this time was the highest in the world. The lounge area in departure area 2 was also expanded and the central building therefore expanded towards the south west. Due to the increasingly intense use of the airport grounds, however, the Aviodome Lelystad was moved completely at the end of 2005.

In 2005, the last major change also took place: the opening of the special departure areas H and M in Hall 3 for the rapidly growing low-cost carrier market. In order to keep the daily costs as low as possible, this section has fewer convenience areas for passengers.