Last year I made a series of presentations about market share across Scotland to the ten largest inbound tourist markets as identified by Visit Scotland. Now that 2024 has concluded and we have a years worth of data I thought it would be a good idea to revisit each of these markets in a bit more detail.
A disclaimer is needed here, I have done this from an airport neutral point of view, and it is very important to remember that just because a load factor is high, that does not necessarily mean that yields are high.
This particular post is focusing specifically on the Scotland-Netherlands market, which is the fourth largest inbound tourism market for Scotland.
For those unfamiliar with the route networks and airlines below is a summary of the routes and airlines that operated flights in 2024;
- Aberdeen to Amsterdam with KLM
- Edinburgh to Amsterdam with easyJet and KLM
- Glasgow to Amsterdam with easyJet and KLM
- Inverness to Amsterdam with KLM
To try and simplify this articles format I will do a general section which will provide a holistic overview of the market, then I will provide sections for each airports performance.
If you are only interested in a specific market segment use the list below to jump to the relevant section;
- Passenger Numbers Per Month
- Passenger Numbers Per Year
- Market Share Per Airport
- Route Specific Numbers
- Previously Served Destinations
Passenger Numbers Per Month
Passenger numbers between Scotland and the Netherlands remain relatively consistent throughout the year from Aberdeen and Glasgow, with Edinburgh and Inverness seeing increased traffic during the summer.
The two airlines who are currently offering flights offer significantly different niches in terms of what they offer the market. easyJet primarily offers point-to-point traffic between Edinburgh/Glasgow and Amsterdam with the brand being well known at both ends of the route. On the other hand, KLM primarily operates flights to connect onto its network in Amsterdam, with several daily flights to each airport in Scotland to catch as much of that market as possible.
Unusually, every single airport sees year round service to Amsterdam, however, until March 2025 Edinburgh Airport did see flights to other Dutch destinations outside of Amsterdam.
Passenger Numbers Per Year
Passenger numbers between Scotland and the Netherlands are currently operating just below 2019 levels, with passenger numbers operating at 99.39% of 2019 levels, the recovery rate for each airport is below;
- Aberdeen = 93.85%
- Edinburgh = 101.66%
- Glasgow = 99.29%
- Inverness = 101.00%
Looking ahead to 2025 there is expected to be reductions in passenger numbers, partially due to capacity issues with KLM who are currently relying on German Airways and Eastern Airways to operate flights to Aberdeen and Glasgow respectively.
Furthermore, of the three destinations served in 2024, only one will operate after March 2025, with Eindhoven and Rotterdam no longer being served, but this will be explained later in this article.
Market Share Per Airport
Unusually, market share between Scotland and the Netherlands has remained consistent when compared to 2019, with only a slight variation in 2020 and 2021 as a result of the pandemic, with Aberdeen seeing an increase at the expense of Edinburgh Airport.
Even looking further back to 2015 levels, the two airports in the Central Belt have remains consistent in market share, with Inverness pulling some market share off of Aberdeen, however, this seems to coincide with capacity increases at Inverness Airport.
Summer 2025 will likely not change the market share considerably, however, it will be one to watch, especially with Edinburgh going from 3 to 1 destinations, and Glasgow seeing a reduction in Amsterdam flights.
Route Specific Numbers
Amsterdam
Passenger numbers between Scotland and Amsterdam have pretty much recovered to 2019 levels, and are operating at 98.95% of 2019 levels, it is also worth considering that because passenger numbers provided by the CAA are “passengers carried” some flight cancellations may have impacted this number as passengers are rebooked via other hubs.
The individual recovery rates for each airport can be found below;
- Aberdeen = 93.85%
- Edinburgh = 100.84%
- Glasgow = 99.29%
- Inverness = 101.00%
Looking ahead to Summer 2025, the recently published “Start of Season Report” for Aberdeen shows the following for Amsterdam flights;
KLM – Including some flights operated by German Airways on behalf of KLM
- Movements will increase from 2,030 to 2,100 – equivalent to an increase of 3%
- This means increasing from 1,015 to 1,050 round trips
- Seats available will increase from 242,028 to 282,188 – equivalent to an increase of 17%
- The larger increase in seats compared to movements is as a result of KLM using larger aircraft on a number of different flights to offer more capacity.
Looking ahead to Summer 2025, the recently published “Start of Season Report” for Edinburgh Airport shows the following for Amsterdam flights;
easyJet Europe
- Movements will decrease from 420 to 266 – equivalent to a decrease of 37%
- This means decreasing from 210 to 133 round trips
- Seats available will decrease from 74,610 to 48,26 – equivalent to a decrease of 35%
easyJet UK
- Movements will increase from 460 to 680 – equivalent to an increase of 48%
- This means increasing from 230 to 340 round trips
- Seats available will increase from 85,560 to 126,480 – equivalent to an increase of 48%
KLM
- Movements will decrease from 2,072 to 1,838 – equivalent to a decrease of 11%
- This means decreasing from 1036 to 919 round trips
- Seats available will increase from 337,968 to 355,044 – equivalent to an increase of 5%
- As seats are increasing while movements are decreasing it means that KLM are using larger aircraft on their flights to offset the reduction in available flights.
Looking ahead to Summer 2025, the recently published “Start of Season Report” for Glasgow Airport shows the following in terms of movements and seats;
easyJet Europe
- Movements will decrease from 352 to 246 – equating to a decrease of 30%
- This means decreasing from 176 to 123 round trips
- The number of seats available will also decrease from 60,252 to 43,296 – equivalent to a decrease of 28%.
KLM – Including flights operated by Eastern Airways
- Movements will decrease from 1,858 to 1,638 – equivalent to a decrease of 12%
- This means decreasing from 929 to 819 round trips
- Seats available will decrease from 288,952 to 269,136 – equivalent to a decrease of 7%
- KLM will use some larger aircraft to try and offset the loss of flights, however, capacity is still down compared to Summer 2024
Moving to Inverness, there is no start of season report published, however, I have had a look at the KLM schedules for the Summer season and have compared the seats available to the passenger numbers in 2024.
Based on this it appears that capacity between Inverness and Amsterdam will remain the same in Summer 2025, with KLM continuing to operate up to two daily flights on a mix of Embraer 175 and 190 aircraft for the summer season.
Previously Served Destinations
This section will outline the destinations that are no longer served from Scotland, but have seen service from at least one Scottish airport between 2015 and 2024.
Eindhoven
Eindhoven was served by Ryanair until the end of March 2025 from Edinburgh Airport, with services operating twice per week.
Services operated year round, however, the route was dropped by Ryanair at the end of the Winter 2024/2025 season. No official reason was provided by Ryanair as to why the route was ended, with Ryanair likely feeling they can fly the aircraft elsewhere more efficiently.
Given the route has only just stopped operating, it will be interesting to see if this is a temporary suspension or if this is a long term decision. There is currently no other airline operating flights to Eindhoven from anywhere in Scotland, however, the most likely replacement airline Transavia has just ended its only Scotland-Netherlands route as seen in the next section.
Rotterdam
Flights between Rotterdam and Edinburgh were operated by Transavia, with the route ending in October 2024, the route operated during the summer months, with frequencies varying year to year.
Although no official reason was provided by Transavia as to why the route was stopped, the airline has since launched a new Rotterdam-London Stansted route, which also means that Edinburgh has lost its position as Transavia’s only UK destination.
As Transavia continues to receive new aircraft into its fleet, it will be interesting to see if Rotterdam returns to the Edinburgh Airport route map, as there is no other airline that would likely cover the route based on current operations across Europe’s airlines.
George Nugent Travels 