Trappy

Passport control closed for D gates had to walk to E took 90 mins to get thru line was worse after me

Queue ahead of me

Queue behind me

Fritz

FWIW, there is probably no clear answer here. We flew AMS - LON on 27/5 (pm) and to our considerable surprise, the airport was like a ghost town. Through security et cetera in a matter of minutes. Ditto inbound LON - AMS on 31/5 (pm). Admittedly using Privium but really wouldn't have made a difference without either way.

But it certainly seems that mornings (esp. early mornings) are more problematic. And it is indeed a holiday on June 6th so the airport will be busier than normal I imagine.

drmcross

Currently sitting in Aspire lounge at Schipol. Arrived on train 4h pre-departure and joined a lengthy combined queue for passport control (4 of us were hand luggage only) which did, however, move briskly. We separated via the “priority” gates into a shorter combined queue which led upstairs. To our surprise there we took a right turn into a completely empty priority lane which we accessed by just showing our 4xCE boarding passes. Security was rapid and passport control added another 10mins (our kids too young to use e-gates) but all in all it was 1h 5m from getting off train at Schipol to being airside.

Mister P.

Thanks for the info. Are the priority lanes also open to OWE flying eco? I am guessing it should say priority on the mobile pass but haven’t flown through Schiphol in a long time.

One more question, as Monday is a public holiday in The Netherlands, there would perhaps be more people arriving into AMS than departing, no?

JustTheOne

Not directly BA related, but KLM has just cancelled all its European flights into AMS this evening due to what it says is overcrowding at the airport (link here). This can't bode well for the next few days, or indeed the rest of the summer, for any airline.
Yesterday APOC released a calendar showing anticipated traveller numbers for the next few months, pretty much every day until August is expected to be busy... It really does seem like things are going to get a lot worse before they get better.

CarefreeBA

The main cause of the delays today were due to the wind (north-easterly). This meant all of possible runway configuration(s) resulted in only 1 landing runway since what usually would be the secondary runway was closed. This caused heavy delays to arriving aircraft early in the morning, and therefore missed connections. I would imagine the lack of KLM staff to rebook these passengers caused an unsafe working environment, hence the cancellations to avoid the problem going late on.

This runway closure is expected to last until July, from which it still can't be used for arriving aircraft due to certain equipment guiding aircraft in (the ILS) needing more maintenance. Therefore, this problem will be here to stay for the whole summer.

As far as BA flights are concerned, any strong north-easterly wind conditions will result in significant delays throughout the day. For those connecting in LHR, it'll be a missed connection and nothing the passenger can do about it in advance of arriving in London. If there aren't BA flights left, then there is a policy that allows you to be rebooked any other airline.

drmcross

Schipol does provide fast track security for OWE members (quite a handy fast track security guide to different airports on the Finnair site here: https://www.finnair.com/gb-en/smooth...security-check) and the chap guarding the lane entrance also commented that BA bronze (which we all currently are) would allow fast track. I wasn’t sure whether I believed him or not but wasn’t about to argue! None of our CE AMS-LHR BPs actually said “Fast Track” on them either so you would be at the whim of the knowledge of the person guarding the lane but I would be very optimistic of your chances.

Not sure about Monday, the Schipol app gives you the ability to check anticipated congestion at the terminal for the week ahead so worth downloading that and checking. I would think it would be very similar to any other day.

CarefreeBA

They're quite relaxed about who uses the fast track there. I've never even had remotely any resistance. The priority queues are never that long (unlike Heathrow/JFK) where it's policed much heavier.

The app for checking congestion is useless in my opinion. The situation doesn't fluctuate day by day, but more so by the time of the day. If one can, aim for the later flights of the day (both inbound and outbound). From personal experience living in the city, and not sure how this reflects in the airport but, the crowd clears out Sunday afternoon/evening. The e-gates are also open so the Dutch passengers can go through that. Immigration won't be an issue as a result of the bank holiday.

EuroFlash

I an seeing pictures with queues far outside of the terminal building. Does Privium actually help in any way? It doesn’t make much sense queuing for 1 or 2 hours outside the terminal only to then use the Privium priority line just before security.

just trying to get a sense of how Privium members get priority access when the queues are THAT long. Or do they just swing their card in the air and walk past everyone? Haha. Just wondering how that practically works out

Raffles

I was banned from Fast Track (Gold in Y) when they realised I had a non-Gold(child) guest.

Once up the stairs I tried again with a different agent / queue comber and we were waved through.

HadesNL

For those thinking of switching from AMS - LCY to RTM - LCY,
or if the Amsterdam airport madness persists during and up to summer....


My experience flying from RTM to LCY last Friday 3rd Jun can be found here:
https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/34303136-post21.html

Mister P.

Thanks for all the updates! Just to follow up on the recent wave of KLM cancellations into AMS: if they were weather / airport maintenance related, I am guessing this would have an impact on BA flights as well, no?

If BA decides to cancel an ex-AMS flight, how much advance notice would it provide?

Mister P.

Hi, I have noticed that today’s BA 8456 AMS-LCY has been cancelled. Anyone knows if this is related to the situation in Schiphol, and what is the likelihood this flight will be operating tomorrow? Thanks

corporate-wage-slave

That's got CCRY on it, cancelled at 12:31 today. That means there was a crew issue that prevent both LCY-AMS and the return flight, and it's eligible for EC261. So I suspect completely unrelated to other problems in AMS and unrelated to tomorrow's operations too.

Mister P.

Ok, thanks for the update! I might check back again with the Forum tomorrow, if you don’t mind!