Unusually thorough security screening at AMS
 

Despite numerous flights from Europe this is the first time either my wife or I transitioned AMS and all our stuff got flagged in the security line. My wife and I play a small game of 'who can choose\get put in the faster security line' so it wasn't just the employees working my line as she was in different one. While not as much as many on this forum I still fly quite a bit and have a pretty good routine for what goes where in my bags, what to wear through the scanner and what should be in my liquids bag.

Anyway - my empty pocketed jeans and collared shirt got flagged for a full pat-down. My backpack got flagged and the security screener spent an inordinate amount of time looking over my camera. Eventually he told me my solid stick of travel deodorant should have gone in my liquids bag which I thought was weird because I'd been buying that brand and placing it in the same spot for the last 5 years without issue. For my carry-on it was 8 stroopwafels in a plastic bag that got it flagged.

I thought for sure I had lost bragging rights but when I exited my wife was also exiting - having had her bag searched as well. No reason was given for her bag search but they unwrapped the two small 1"-2" tall souvenir windmills and wanted to know what they were.

I took a quick look across lines and the there seemed to be quite a few bags being checked in addition to ours so I was curious if bag searches were more common in AMS?

Security in AMS can be very slow and extremely thorough.

It does have a very high number of infrequent leisure travellers. Last time I went through there, three people in front of me thought they could hide bottles of water.

Agreed, I've always had some of my most thorough searches there. Only place that ever took my little container of contact lens solution. It was ever so slightly above the limit and I had forgotten about it. Glad I had LASIK a few years ago lol.

I've had them take pretty much everything out of my laptop bag just about every time. No worries though, I like the airport in general.

On a trip to Antwerp, Belgium last year I flew Delta into and out of AMS. The night before departing I stayed at the Hilton Schipol so I could walk to the terminal in the morning.

I made the mistake of doing the security paperwork check on the public side of security screening (they have one booth set up there). I had just walked dragging my suitcase from the hotel, the air conditioning wasn't that great, and I was wearing my light jacket that I brought due to not wanting to carry it (I'm guessing the airport was in the mid-upper 70's). As a result I had a little bit of a sweat going when I reached that security desk.

That didn't end up well. After 15 minutes of questioning didn't satisfy them, they retrieved my checked bag and searched it (I don't even think that happens on a SSSS!).

Turns out I could have waited until past security to do that paperwork check after relaxing for a minute or two and getting my morning cup of coffee...oops.

Well, stroopwafels are sort of a deadly weapon. :D But, I'm confused that someone in AMS didn't know what a windmill was.

Indeed. When my bag got flagged I figured some combination of my corkscrew, cheese or tripod with retractable spiked feet was the problem but *shrug*

That was my first reaction but I am guessing it was a translation issue? Or he was confirming they were souvenirs and not actually unfamiliar with windmills?

At AMS virtually all bags get sent to secondary inspection at times. I guess they are bored.

This is a sentence that I don't understand at all. What paperwork??

The airline contractors' additional "security" screening/document check. They ask "questions" of passengers when say flying DL from AMS to the US. The kind of people who try to get US citizens to provide non-existent, illegal Danish ID to fly on planes from AMS to the US only because the roundtrip US-bound ticket for the US citizens starts and ends in Denmark.

This Q&A checking/paperwork can be done near the airline check-in counters on the open/public landside of the airport, or it can be done at a real gate or pseudo-gate area airside when flying US carriers to the US from AMS.

OK, so this not AMS airport per se, but that weird process that US-airlines have in place for US-bound flights. Got it.

Yes, I've gone through some form of it at every European airport when flying home to the US. Sometimes it is just answering questions at the gate. I don't recall paperwork at AMS but it's one of those things I forget about as soon as its over I suppose.

Unless they almost deny boarding because you don't know the birthday of your friend you're staying with... Or, because you paid for your ticket, booked a month earlier, three days before your departure... Or, because you could not show them an employer-issued ID card when the employer (Greek National Service) won't issue one...

Three different TATL trips that I still remember, all from AMS. Fortunately the supervisors have a normal IQ and the whole thing only serves in making you angry! :mad: