South London Bon Viveur

Thanks for the update? What's with the large numbers of uncollected bags? I did notice that a couple of weeks ago myself.....

Are these bags that were delayed and are now with Schiphol for processing? I saw similar scenes at Heathrow T3 a couple of days ago. Sh*t shows all round!

DYKWIA

People stuck in immigration queues, so can't get to the baggage area.

lon_flyer

I'm no lover of Br***t but this is something the Dutch authorities have the opportunity to change to speed up passport queues. Many Spanish airports are already routinely sending British passport holders through e-gates (indeed at some airports, e.g. PMI, it's the default route for British passport holders) - so there's no practical or legal reason it can't be done. Given this would hugely reduce the queues, they should really look at this as this is a pretty extraordinary situation right now.

KARFA

Well since we do not have automatic right of entry you can understand the reluctance to waive their right to scrutinise and merely send Uk passport holders through epassport gates with someone simply stamping afterwards.

nldogbert

Coincidentally just read in the news portal today, this is because of
- yes delayed bags that have started arriving recently
- some hiccup in the baggage delivery system from the last few days, but seems to have been solved
- not sufficient workforce to sort out these delayed baggage

Cheers!

flatlander

It was always thus at AMS even before the COVID and post-COVID problems: AMS has many runways, but doesn't use more than one or two at the same time. It is part of what makes it a most unreliable airport at the best of times. Now is not the best of times.

Barnaby100

In PMI you then have to go to the desk though where you hand over your passport. They stamp it and say Brexit and hand it back
They must say Brexit thousands of times each day- been doing it for over a year and it still makes me smile.

dddc

I'm hoping that when the EU Tourist Visa comes into effect this will no longer be the case. Australia allows selected other passport holders to use their e-gates, but you are "pre-screened" by having to apply for a tourist visa before you get there. They don't stamp your passports there.

Lenis

Further data point on AMS-LHR, 28/6 19:00 departure:
HBO, used departures 3. Fast track managed to totally avoid the (apparently 2hr) security line. Passport control took circa 25min. Aspire lounge hectic but overall not as horrific as expected (though I confess that was down to the ability to use fast track).

JustTheOne

Some more data points, although I think everything is almost meaningless at the moment given the volatility of the situation.

LHR-AMS, Friday (STA: 20:35, ATA: 21:17). The flight was delayed by an hour at LHR, due either to a lack of staff available to assist a wheelchair passenger off the plane (said the gate staff) or late arriving inbound (said the pilot). AMS appeared to have closed all arrival halls except the ones in section G, so we had an even longer than normal walk to get to passport control. As far as I could tell, the e-gates were all closed, and the queue for all passports was so long that we were held at the top of the stairs for at least 15 minutes before being fed downstairs into a snaking queue to the booths. It then took another 40 minutes or so to get through, after which we had another long walk back to the low number baggage belts. The flight probably only appeared on the display about 70 minutes after we landed, but by the time we got to the belt, it looked like most bags had been delivered. The arrivals hall was utter chaos, with unclaimed bags everywhere and people milling about trying to find information and/or their bags. We exited the airport at around 22:45, so 1.5 hrs after landing - it could have been a LOT worse, but it still wasn't ideal.

AMS-LHR, Saturday morning (STD: 11:35). We left the Sheraton at 07:50. The internal corridor between check in areas 1 and 2/3 was closed, so we had to walk outside to get to the BA check in area. There was a reasonably long queue for bag drop, but the priority queue was empty meaning we got our luggage checked in pretty quickly. Then we joined the long queue for security, but asked a member of staff if we could go straight to the priority boarding pass gates at the bottom of the stairs, and she escorted us to do so, meaning we jumped the first section of the queue straight away. Our BPs were scanned through the gate and then checked manually immediately afterwards which allowed us straight up the stairs, past the rest of the waiting queue. At the top of the stairs, we were then able to go through another manual BP check to turn right into priority security past another snaking queue. Security was really quick (and surprisingly cheerful!) and we joined the main passport queue at 08:25, were into the feeder queue for the individual e-gates by 08:30 and through by 08:37. We arrived at the Aspire lounge at 08:50 (via duty free), so it took us just about an hour from hotel door to lounge: at the moment, I consider that a proper result!!

As others have said, without any kind of priority, I dread to think how long we would have been in the various queues - the stress of not knowing what we were heading into means I will absolutely be avoiding AMS for now...

(as an aside, Mr JtO was horrified to discover that AMS no longer has a smoking zone since 2019, so he's not in a hurry to visit again either! ;-)

dafferna

Can anyone please confirm if BA silver can access the priority security at AMS to LHR? Also can BA Business passengers use the priority security lines? Seems it may have been stopped recently?

crazyanglaisy

My understanding is that Gold, Silver and Business all have access. However, note that you will struggle to bring a guest through who isn't eligible. My guest was almost turned away on that basis (which is fair enough given it's not a oneworld privilege), but the agent let us both through anyway. Largely because the airport was really quiet. This was on the BA443 at 21.05 on a mid-week evening last week. We arrived 4 hours early thinking it would be mayhem, but we were through to the lounge in 15 mins, including checking in 2 suitcases.

dafferna

Many thanks. We are both BA
Silver but intending to fly economy as the upgrade cost is extortionate. Would upgrade if it meant we could skip into priority security instead of the possible 4 hour waits.

sammarshall7

We are flying AMS-LHR-IAH on Sunday, July 24th (LHR-IAH premium economy if that makes any difference at AMS). We are on BA0423 departing AMS at 8:00 a.m. - does anyone know for sure what time the baggage desk opens at AMS? BA chat says 2 hours before (so 6:00 a.m.), but that seems a little tight with what's going on currently.

corporate-wage-slave

The area where this information is kept up to date is in MMB under the flight line, check-in, other ways to check-in. I think the old layout of MMB provides the timings more clearly.