Originally Posted by
warakorn
The departure lounge 4 is a joke - you have almost none of the amnenities you got in the other departure zones. I wanted exchange some exotic currency back to Euro. Yes, I was angry when being stuck in that stupid M-gate area.
This is an "issue" only for Easyjet, Wow and Norwegian flights - and came at the request of the lowcost carriers.
Within a few years, these flights will almost certainly all be compelled to operate from Lelystad. Schiphol is rapidly approaching its agreed upper capacity limit and plans are afoot to move all charter/"holiday" flights to Lelystad. As part of their repertoire to move O&D/LCC operator flights from AMS the fees for using AMS for such flights will almost certainly be raised, while Lelystad will offer even cheaper fees.
Originally Posted by
warakorn
Further, I would be no problem to offer an airside connection between the M-gates and departure lounge 3. M-arrivals should be all clean, so they can be dispersed into departure lounge 3 without another security check. Only a entry and exit immigration checkpoint need to be installed. Since most checkpoints are automated nowadays, that should not be a problem at all.
It *would* be a problem, as that would lead to the anomolous situation of Schengen-Schengen pax having to first
exit the Schengen zone (i.e. Enter Lounge 3), and then
enter the Schengen zone again (cross from Lounge 2 to Lounge 1 - thereby being subjected to two totally unnecessary immigration controls. [This may have greater impact on those on non-European passports and thise travelling on certain types of visa - forcing them to "leave" and "re-enter" the Schengen zone where this is not an accurate record of what is happening]
The simplest procedure is to remain in the Schengen zone.
(It still remains true that all gates are connected airside. This is apparent if you arrive at the Low cost pier on, say, Ryanair, for which flights the gates are quite naturally always configured as a H, rather than M, gate)