Did you know wind helps choose the runway at Schiphol?

At Schiphol, runway selection depends on wind, visibility, traffic and available runways, Dutch air traffic control provider LVNL explains. For safety, aircraft take off and land into the wind whenever possible.

The airport has runways facing different directions to accommodate changes in the wind. Fog and thunderstorms can limit some combinations; runway preferences also seek to reduce disturbance to residents. The same journey can therefore use a different runway on another day.

LVNL's explanation shows why an aircraft might use a different runway from one observed on a previous journey without anything being wrong. Wind, visibility, traffic intensity and infrastructure availability influence the decision. Where possible, aircraft take off and land into the wind for operational reasons, and different runways suit different conditions.

Noise-related preferences can also help limit disturbance to nearby communities when traffic and safety allow. Safety remains the priority. For anyone watching aircraft movements on a map, changing flight paths and runway numbers are part of a complex airport's normal operation. Those patterns alone should not be used to predict delays or changes to a booking.