The US low-cost airline Jetblue has not been allocated take-off and landing rights in Amsterdam-Schiphol for the 2024 summer flight schedule. The carrier is massively upset about this and is trying to initiate countermeasures through the US authorities. 

The Dutch government has decided that under the guise of “climate and environmental protection” the number of take-offs and landings at Schiphol should be reduced. This hits KLM and Transavia particularly hard, as the two home base carriers are limited in their future growth. 

However, 24 other airlines are also affected because their slot applications for summer 2024 were rejected. The official reasoning is that there simply wouldn't be enough to distribute due to the cap. In accordance with international practice, preference was given to those airlines that had so-called grandfather rights. 

But Jetblue doesn't have this yet because they haven't been active in Schiphol long enough. The US low-cost airline sees things completely differently, claiming that its entry into the market has resulted in flight prices between the Netherlands and the USA falling. They now want to fight legally to obtain take-off and landing rights for the summer of 2024. 

A few days ago it was announced that the low coster in the USA a discrimination report to the Department of Transportation has directed. Among other things, this calls for the Air France-KLM group to be banned from New York-JFK Airport. This is seen as an effective countermeasure and it is hoped that the Netherlands will then quickly award the coveted take-off and landing rights for Schiphol. How the DoT will deal with Jetblue's concerns is completely open. 

In any case, it is not the case that the US low-cost airline did not know that in 2024 it would be in a situation where it would de facto be “kicked out” of Schiphol. The current take-off and landing rights were only allocated after a real odyssey with the authorities, but Jetblue was already informed at the time that this was only a provisional allocation from which no rights for subsequent years could be derived.