KARFA

And I think the walking distance from the far D gates to get landside at AMS is pretty much the same as that from a T5B gate to get landside at LHR too - or at least google maps and measuring the distances suggests there is not much in it

stefan_nl

And apparently, it's really busy today at Schiphol. As far as I can see it's in about every terminal, Schengen, and Non-Schengen alike. Apparently, it's a peak day at Schiphol (there is a national holiday Thursday, but no school vacations). Also people are reporting that the priority lanes are closed to all but Privium members. It seem that security at T1 and T2 where closed and everyone was redirected to T3 somewhere around 13:30.













This does seem to be security at T3:

GordonMacPherson

I was meant to be on the late afternoon AMS-LCY flight that was DULY cancelled and had us put on RTM-LCY.

I only found that out after gotten to AMS to thousands of people queuing and have noone to attend for ticketing.

As I was already moved to RTM-LCY, i tried to find my way to get there and the whole airport was, in general, empty. probably 2 hours lte into LCY so hopefully some compensation.

stefan_nl

Apperently last sunday night some passengers tried to strom security.

https://www.parool.nl/nederland/chao...role~b83550c6/

Mister P.

Hi,
We have a BA flight in 2 weeks AMS-LCY (Monday evening). Given the ongoing situation at Schiphol, would it make sense to move the departure to Rotterdam? Flights leave around the same time but we would obviously need to allow extra time for the train to Rotterdam. Thanks

SxMan

always preferable to use Rotterdam in my experience.

Mister P.

Thanks. Will BA cancel one of our bookings if we have AMS-LCY and RTM-LCY booked within 1h difference? (Would prefer to keep both bookings for the moment to see how the situation at Schiphol evolves).

corporate-wage-slave

No. What I would say about that is that BA would offer RTM-LCY as a fare difference change if you wanted to make that decision, which I suspect will be inexpensive. On the other hand you can more or less guess when AMS is going to be so busy as to justify going to RTM, and Monday evening would not figure on my estimation as a peak period. You would have to think about a 90 minutes plus queue at AMS to justify the trip to RTM and it's only that bad at peak periods.

https://www.schiphol.nl/en/my-travel-day/today

Mister P.

Thanks for the infos, cws! I have checked the link provided and on our travel date it says "Departure: peak day. We expect it to be very busy in the departure hall". I think it is school holidays in The Netherlands so it looks like AMS might be quite crowded on those dates.

We actually have Avios tickets so we have some flexibility, might change the departure to RTM as there is still award space available.

Edit: does anyone know why BA 8456 AMS-LCY was cancelled yesterday?

stefan_nl

Technically, there is no school holiday before the 9th of July in the Netherland. There is a holiday this week (Thursday, ascension) and most schools have the Friday after off as well. But to be honest almost every day from now to the school holidays in the summer (and of course the school holidays themselves) are busy or peak days for Schiphol. There is an enormous staff shortage at security. From different experiences there is no real way to predict how busy it will actually will be when you're flying. I have seen reports from people who were airside in 30 min (without any prio) and people who waited 2+ hours for security. On all times of day, day by day its different, basically Schiphol wait times are a lottery.

Blue Peter

The Eurostar fares - especially the direct ones - are quite steep (I prefer Standard Premier) especially as I was going to fly on miles, but it sounds that it's the way to go (and come back!)
Thanks for the insight. Seems they wil be in trouble for quite a while yet.

Blue Peter

Then again, as I am halfway between AMS and RTM, perhaps RTM is the better option. Not flown out of there in years, but much smaller and, surely, less chance for things to go wrong?

South London Bon Viveur

100000% better to go from Rotterdam. I'm tempted to change my usual LCY-AMS return to a multi city LCY-AMS and then RTM-LCY return.

South London Bon Viveur

Not any of us Brits as we love a queue.

Probably Feyenoord fans on the way to Tirana

CarefreeBA

I'm in a Facebook group with a bunch of British People living in The Netherlands, so get sent pictures/reports daily too from them. Over the past few weeks, I've seen it fluctuate daily from 20mins to 3 hours.

I would definitely recommend RTM-LCY vs AMS at the moment if the distance is negligible. Even then, the travel from RTM to Amsterdam Centraal station is about 1 hour - you just have to account for the cost of that depending on how many people are travelling.

I have had flights held for delayed passengers due security (potentially because they also had bags checked in) for about 30mins max, but don't bet on that. If you have priority, try departures 2 (behind the KLM check in desks 9-16) priority entrance first which is on the right hand side, followed by the one behind the check in entrance, followed by Departures 3. This is because of how the priority entrance is segregated and makes it much easier to access.

I'm making a further trip mid June and early July to follow this on with more info. By far the worse I've seen Schiphol for the years I've lived here.