Schiphol Warns Ecommerce Parcels Are Overwhelming Air Cargo Handling

What Dutch air cargo handlers are flagging

According to The Loadstar, Air Cargo Netherlands (ACN) has formally pressed IATA to accelerate the development of a dedicated ecommerce handling code, arguing that the current pace of parcel growth is pushing cargo operations at Amsterdam Schiphol to their physical limits. In a paper shared with The Loadstar, ACN described the situation in blunt terms: what began as a steady stream of parcels has grown into what they called “an avalanche of parcels, pushing first-line handling to its physical limits.”

ACN is not a fringe player. It represents the air cargo handlers who move freight through one of Europe’s busiest international hubs. Their warning carries weight because the problems they describe are operational, not hypothetical. Handlers are reporting that ecommerce shipments arrive in grey poly-mailers or loosely packed cartons, with pallets sometimes containing boxes that have collapsed under the weight of cargo stacked above them. Weight indicators are frequently missing, and because these small, variable-sized parcels cannot be stacked properly, counting items on a pallet becomes “exceedingly difficult,” per ACN’s language in the paper published by The Loadstar.

Why loose parcels are a different animal for airport crews

Traditional air freight moves in large, uniform, consolidated units. A pallet of 40 identical cartons is easy to count, stack, scan, and load. Ecommerce parcels, by contrast, arrive as hundreds of different-sized bags and boxes, often with handwritten or unclear labels, no standard dimensions, and no compatibility with the automated sorting systems built for larger freight units.

ACN told The Loadstar that these small, variable parcels are “incompatible with existing automated systems, which are specifically designed for large, consolidated freight.” The result is more manual handling, longer processing times, greater risk of misrouting or damage, and a compounding strain on personnel who are already dealing with peak-season volume increases. The association argued that the current model “disrupts regular air freight” and demands structural intervention, not just more headcount.

What this means if you ship from the US to Europe

If you buy from American retailers and receive packages in the Netherlands, Germany, or elsewhere in Europe, your parcel likely transits through one of these major air cargo hubs. The ACN warning is a signal that the infrastructure moving your package is under increasing stress. A few practical implications follow:

• Processing delays become more likely. When handlers face thousands of loose parcels per flight, scan-and-sort throughput drops. Your package may sit longer at a transfer hub than it would in a well-organized consolidated shipment.
• Damage risk rises. ACN noted that boxes arrive collapsed and unstackable. A single small parcel packed loosely inside a larger carton is more vulnerable to crushing than a box that has been properly padded and consolidated.
• Misrouting and lost parcels are harder to trace. When items arrive in poly-mailers with no weight indicator and unclear labels, a mis-scan is harder to catch before the parcel ends up in the wrong destination bin.

None of this means your package will certainly be damaged or delayed. But the trend ACN is describing is structural: as long as ecommerce volume grows and parcels keep arriving as individual, unstandardized units, the friction at the handling level will persist.

Why the difference between one box and five mailers matters

There is a simple operational truth in what ACN is describing: a single, well-padded, clearly labeled box is easier to move through an air cargo system than five loose poly-mailers of varying sizes. The former can be weighed once, scanned once, stacked, and loaded. The latter requires individual handling at every touchpoint.

This is not an argument against direct-ship-from-retailer models. For a single item, shipping directly is often the simplest choice. But if you are pulling together an order from two or three US stores, or running a small resale operation with regular cross-border volume, consolidating those items into one or two properly packed boxes before they enter the international air cargo network reduces the number of individual handling events your goods go through. Fewer touchpoints, fewer chances for a parcel to be crushed under a collapsed box above it or lost in a pile of unidentifiable mailers.

Services like Viabox operate on exactly this logic: you send your US orders to a domestic address, the packages are received, inspected, and repacked into a single consolidated box, and then that one box goes through customs and air cargo handling as a unified unit rather than a scatter of individual parcels. No monthly fee, no commitment — you pay only when you actually ship.

The bigger picture for cross-border shoppers

ACN’s warning to IATA is ultimately a call for the industry to catch up with the reality that ecommerce now represents a substantial share of air cargo volume. Until that handling code exists and airports adapt their facilities, the strain described in The Loadstar’s report is likely to continue. For anyone regularly importing goods from the US into Europe, the practical advice is straightforward: reduce the number of individual parcels entering the international pipeline, pack them properly, and choose a shipping route where your goods are consolidated before they hit the tarmac. The carriers and handlers are telling us, in increasingly specific terms, that the old way of flooding the system with loose parcels is not sustainable. Adapting your approach now is less hassle than sorting through a damaged or delayed parcel later.