Evening all

I have seen lots of information about how busy AMS gets lately, particularly security queues etc. But are there similar problems moving between the shengan and international areas airside?

Background, I live near a regional airport and pre-pandemic, pre-brexit by far the best option to get anywhere in europe was to fly to AMS and then connect onwards. It would take a maximum of 30 mins to get through central passport control so could quite safely have 90 mins between flights and still time to pop into a lounge. Now of course we have all the chaos after covid, plus uk passports will need more than a cursory glance to allow onward travel, so I guess I need to allow 3-4 hrs between flights? Is this still viable ??

My local airport does of course fly directly to other european airports but these are generally inferior airlines and only 1 flight per day (or sometimes just 1 or 2 per week) which leaves very few options in the event of a cancellation. KLM still do 3 per day.

Cheers
TT

Passengers who are transiting AMS don’t appear to be having the same issues as those arriving and departing.

Since the UK was never in Schengen nothing has particularly changed in respect of passport checks other than requiring a manual entry / exit stamp which adds less than 30 seconds to the process.

When I arrived in May I was delayed more by people not having their passports ready for processing than by anything the K Mar were doing with their inspection,

I see no need to be allowing 3-4 hours to your connection time.

Many thanks for your reply, that is reassuring. I know we weren't in schengan before but could still use the EU passport lanes, I was assuming now we can't and have to use rest of the world and get stuck behind people needing visas etc.

Cheers
TT

I went through AMS 4 times last month. Very little time difference in immigration to pre-Brexit.
You can use the eGates (along with US, Canada, Australia, Korea, Japan etc) when departing for UK , and then get stamped, but it was manual inspection only on the way in.

Biggest problem is their ongoing flight delays, which appear to have eased somewhat. Almost everyone with a connection on my first flight in from UK (May 31st), missed it.


I suggest you look at your local airport's daily arrivals/departures site to get a feel for what the current KLM record looks like.

Or Schiphol's board.
For example, I can see that KL1440 from ABZ this morning was 45minutes late.
https://www.schiphol.nl/en/arrivals/...0220703KL1440/
With that possibility in mind, I would want a long connection.

Hi,
sorry for reusing this thread, but I have a similar question regarding the current situation. I will fly via AMS in 2 weeks and need to transfer from Schengen to Non-Schengen (so I guess passport check only). We have to use manual border check, since my wife can't use the automated ones.

From schedule, we have 1:35h for transferring. But I can see that the flight is currently frequently delayed, so many times I would have only 60-65minutes. Is this in the current situation sufficient? Worst case would be walking from B to E or even bus arrival...

Thanks

I have a YYZ-AMS-IST coming up with a 1:10 connection time at AMS.

I am assuming that arriving from Canada I won�t have to go through security again. Also assuming that because it�s non-Schengen to non-Schengen this will just be walking gate to gate.

Are both of these correct assumptions, meaning that absent a long delay on the first leg this should be a relatively easy connection in the time available?

First assumption is wrong. Beside of "Schengen" / "non-Schengen", there is also "clean" / "unclean" arrival. Unclean means a security check during transfer and everything outside Europe (slightly simplified) is unclean. But there is no additional border check.

That�s not true about Europe. Whenever I connect via WAW or FRA from Canada onwards to non-Schengen, I don�t go through security. When I do the same connection the other way from Central Asia, etc� I do go through security. So Canada is not considered �unclean� at other European airports. I�m just trying to understand whether things are the same at AMS.


edit: For greater clarity, I�m hoping that someone who transits AMS frequently would know what a clean/non-Schengen arrival (AC) looks like to transfer to another non-Schengen flight (TK)

You walk from your arrival gate to your departure gate. No checks, nothing.

Thank you. In that case barring any delay I feel okay on my transit time. Although it�s one of those itineraries where if I miss that connection a good chunk of the trip gets horribly disrupted�. Fingers crossed!

US and Canadian arrivals — among some other arrivals into AMS from outside Europe — are considered “clean”, meaning no required transit security screening is required on say something like a US/Canada-AMS-UK/Denmark/Sweden/Singapore trip.

Keep in mind AMS is huge, and often very crowded. I walk quickly and it took me 20+ minutes from security to my departure gate. There are some people movers/ moving sidewalks in the terminals, but more than half them were out of order recently. If possible, allow a little longer than you normally would to get from gate to gate.

Yeah this one is tough as I had a hard time finding any itinerary that worked well. But the 1:10 connection in AMS is definitely the danger point. Especially as I have onward travel on another airline/PNR after I reach my �final� destination. Will just need to hope for the best I think.

In the run up to your flight you could do a daily check the AMS website to see which gates your arriving and departing flights use and then plot your route between them which may help to put your mind at ease over the connection time.

Of course the gates may change on the day but at least you’d have a better idea of the route and distances involved.