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About us

Rotterdam The Hague Airport (RTHA) offers airlines a 24 hour a day, 365 day a year home base for scheduled and charter flights, business flights, and civil air transport (such as trauma and police helicopters). We are the regional airport for the Rotterdam-The Hague metropolitan region and facilitate air travel for around two million passengers each year. This makes RTHA – part of the Royal Schiphol Group – the third largest airport in the Netherlands in terms of passengers. Fly from our airport to 50 European destinations.

A nearby airport
Our mission: to take good care of our environment and act in the interest of the region. This includes the people of Rotterdam, Delft, The Hague, and all the others who live and work in the vicinity and appreciate the convenience of a nearby airport. We are aware that our neighbours experience both the benefits and the burdens of aviation. That is why we are doing our utmost to increase the shared interest of residents and businesses in our airport. This connection goes beyond facilitating air travel. We also serve as an employer, trainer, innovator, connector, as a factor in the business climate, and as a business partner. We thus aim to be the pride of the region – economically, socially, and as a good ‘neighbour’. In addition, we have also established an on-site training institute for students who want to go into the field of aviation.

Travellers are our number one priority
Travellers are our primary focus. We want our passengers to feel welcome and to want to come back. Providing that personal attention is our ultimate goal. From travelling to our airport to ‘boarding’ the plane and back – everything must be safe, clear, and fast. At RTHA, you can walk straight from the bus or car into the terminal and before you know it you’re in the air! The ultimate travel experience. That’s what we’re here for. We do this together as the team of proud and enthusiastic people behind Rotterdam The Hague Airport.

Cooperation in sustainability
We are proactively pursuing innovation and aiming to make our ground operations climate neutral by 2030. Sustainability is not just about today. It is also about the future. It will increasingly become a matter of course as we encourage and enable further advancements and innovations. We continuously demonstrate how we translate new insights and innovations into cleaner, quieter aviation. We are working together with the Rotterdam The Hague Innovation Airport Foundation (RHIA) and ten other regional partners who are committed to innovation and sustainability in aviation. This is how we bring people, businesses, and insights together at our airport and in its surrounding vicinity. We also strive for innovation in service of sustainability, safety, and hospitality.

Making air travel possible together
As an airport, we provide the infrastructure needed to make air travel possible: both the runways and the arrival and departure halls on the airport grounds. Airlines use this infrastructure and the airport, together with other interested parties such as the Royal Netherlands Military Constabulary and Air Traffic Control the Netherlands, ensures that this takes place in a safe manner.

Download our story in facts and figures here (2020)

What are our roots?
Rotterdam and aviation have been connected since 1783. In that year, the first manned hot air balloon in the Netherlands took off from Rotterdam. The pioneers of aviation really got their wings in the 1920s and 1930s. The whole of the Netherlands followed the rescue of the Dutch aircraft the Uiver in 1934. And Rotterdammers expressed pride in their own Waalhaven Airport –
until it was completely destroyed in the Second World War. It was not until well into the reconstruction years that, under pressure from the Rotterdam Chamber of Commerce, the Dutch government finally agreed to the construction of a civilian airport to the north of the city. On 1 October 1956, Zestienhoven Airport opened on the polder between Rotterdam and The Hague. It proved to be an enormous boost for business activity in the region. Its success led to the expansion and renovation of the airport in the years that followed.
Since the 1990s, our airport has specialised in scheduled traffic to European centres, with space for private business traffic and holiday flights. Such a prominent international profile deserves an appropriate name.
Since 2010, we have thus been called: Rotterdam The Hague Airport.