Whilst there weren’t any passenger flights in June, Eelde still had 4,000 plane movements
Translated by Thomas Ansell
The airport, which is partially owned by the three Northern provinces, had 50 percent more plane movements in June 2020 compared to June 2019. As reported by the GIC.
Of the 4,000 plane movements, most were flight lessons: around 2,800 take-offs and landings were training flights. This time last year only 800 movements were related to training. Whilst Eelde can’t really be called a major Dutch airport anymore, with no London flights since British carrier Flybe went bankrupt and only three or four seasonal holiday destinations on the rostrum, it is the base of KLM Flight Academy.
The growth in training flights is mostly due to the KLM Flight Academy merging with the MartinAir Flight Academy; with the entire MartinAir fleet (at the moment consisting only of one Boeing 747 Cargo plane) now based at Eelde.
This means that lots of the plane movements will have been smaller aircraft, with the KLM Flight Academy generally using twin-engined Diamond DA42 planes, or smaller Beechcraft Baron and Piper Archer craft. Aside from flight school-related takeoffs and landings, Eelde also had around 1,200 more private flights operate from the airport compared to last year.
Image: a Diamond DA42. Via Wikimedia user Rama. License here.
