This was the airport in 1916, consisting of a muddy field and 4 wooden hangars:
1931: Flights are written with chalk on a blackboard:
2 July 1970; the very first time a Boeing 747 visits Amsterdam; a Pan Am N737PA "Clipper Red Jacket" onwards to Brussels:
(Note how the aircraft are parked alongside the terminal instead of the current nose-in)
On 31 January 1971 it was KLM's turn to bring the 747 to Amsterdam. PH-BUA; a 747-200 "Mississippi" in front of the brand new hangar 11 at Schiphol-East (the area where those 3 hangers stood in 1916).
(a sad fact is this plane was flown in by a crew including Jacob Veldhuyzen van Zanten; who would be the captain of the KLM 747 that crashed on Tenerife just 6 years later and the hundreds caskets from the KLM jumbo were placed in this very hangar for a ceremonial)
This video from the city archives of Amsterdam is a really nice animation of the development of the airport in those 100 years.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Xvj_5JG1Oc
Some numbers:
- One of the oldest airports still in operation. KLM was founded in 1919 and is the oldest airline still operation under its original name.
- Handled 58 million passengers in 2015 and for 2016 it's expected to handle 63 million passengers. 39.5% of passengers were transfer passengers.
- This places the airport on #11 based on passenger traffic in the world and #5 in Europe; but based on current numbers for 2016 AMS might end up higher.
- 465,521 aircraft movements in 2015.
- AMS has 322 direct destinations to 95 countries around the world including 295 direct passenger destinations.
There are so many more fantastic photo's and great information about this airport but if I would search for them and placed them in this post; I would take ME 100 years to complete this post.
Schiphol today:
