Protesters, many wearing white coveralls and some on bicycles, took to the tarmac around 1200 GMT, before taking a seat in front of at least 14 private planes. There was also a Royal Canadian Air Force C-130 transporter on that tarmac.
Singing slogans like “Down with flights” or “Schiphol polluter of the environment”, these activists from the NGOs Greenpeace and Extinction Rebellion circled the tarmac, to the applause of spectators on the other side of the fences.
“Today’s action means that Schiphol airport must reduce its emissions, there must be fewer flights,” Greenpeace Netherlands spokeswoman Faiza Oulahsen told AFP. “We start with flights that we absolutely don’t need, such as private jets and short flights.”
About three hours after the tarmac invasion began, Dutch border police began arresting activists, some of whom were dragged to buses after passively resisting.
“We take this very seriously. These people are in a place where they should not have been,” spokesman Major Robert van Kapel told AFP.
For Greenpeace, the police were “far too harsh on the activists on bicycles” and at least one person was hit in the head.
The action came on the eve of the opening on Sunday in Egypt of COP27, the UN climate summit. Plane pollution “is something they need to talk about,” Tessel Hofstede, spokesperson for Extinction Rebellion, told AFP.
