Schiphol to introduce centralised security for non-Schengen from 2015
Jun 9, 2015, 12:42 am
#316
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Schiphol featured in a short report on yesterday's Nieuwsuur (http://nos.nl/uitzending/6191-nieuwsuur.html, starts at 6:10) and it's pretty clear they made damn sure that all security lanes were open at that time because there is nobody standing there at all.
Jun 9, 2015, 12:52 am
#317
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Are there fewer KMar checkpoints than before, is it a staffing problem, or is poorly designed infrastructure the issue?
Why on earth they can't provide a dedicated Privium checkpoint is beyond my comprehension. Even if they were to feed it a trickle other priority pax at busy times, they would still be giving their paying customers something for their money. Automated passport checkpoints are already undermining their business case, by abolishing the dedicated checkpoints they simply digging their own grave at a faster pace.
Johan
Jun 9, 2015, 2:09 am
#319
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Jun 9, 2015, 6:08 am
#320
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During my today's transit in AMS I checked the lines from airside and looked very decent with all security stations manned. Passport control with a 30m queue with no e-passport lines open.
Jun 9, 2015, 9:23 am
#321
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Negative, no automatic kiosk operational & I-Sec territory: Departure 2. Also did hear that on Sunday they moved G4S employees from 3 to 2 to assist I-Sec @departure 2?
1st world problem: Lady guarding priority access at the ground floor decided that a Diamond medailon didn't have access. C'mon Schiphol is 60-70%? transfer pax and certainly not everyone is a KLM FB plat or gold. Privium got me in though....
2 KMar staff at each checkpoint: Observed at departure hall 2 and also 2 at the Non-Schengen -Schengen transfer checkpoint. All automatic passport control checkpoints inoperational. Especially the transfer checkpoint was bad. It was not particular busy but all the (longer) lines were at passport control checkpoints.
They at least could follow the same setup as used @ Departure hall 1 were at least Priviums have their own lane instead of dumping every priority pax at the same waiting area. Still a lot WIP though....
Hopefully the e-passport checkpoints will be operational soon, easy solution to get rid of the lines. However they had them for some time when you arrive and they never seem to be operational when i arrived.
1st world problem: Lady guarding priority access at the ground floor decided that a Diamond medailon didn't have access. C'mon Schiphol is 60-70%? transfer pax and certainly not everyone is a KLM FB plat or gold. Privium got me in though....
Why's that?
Are there fewer KMar checkpoints than before, is it a staffing problem, or is poorly designed infrastructure the issue?
Why on earth they can't provide a dedicated Privium checkpoint is beyond my comprehension. Even if they were to feed it a trickle other priority pax at busy times, they would still be giving their paying customers something for their money. Automated passport checkpoints are already undermining their business case, by abolishing the dedicated checkpoints they simply digging their own grave at a faster pace.
Johan
Are there fewer KMar checkpoints than before, is it a staffing problem, or is poorly designed infrastructure the issue?
Why on earth they can't provide a dedicated Privium checkpoint is beyond my comprehension. Even if they were to feed it a trickle other priority pax at busy times, they would still be giving their paying customers something for their money. Automated passport checkpoints are already undermining their business case, by abolishing the dedicated checkpoints they simply digging their own grave at a faster pace.
Johan
They at least could follow the same setup as used @ Departure hall 1 were at least Priviums have their own lane instead of dumping every priority pax at the same waiting area. Still a lot WIP though....
Hopefully the e-passport checkpoints will be operational soon, easy solution to get rid of the lines. However they had them for some time when you arrive and they never seem to be operational when i arrived.
Last edited by Grouchy; Jun 9, 2015 at 9:29 am
Jun 9, 2015, 10:39 am
#322
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Did you also notice the article on page 3: "Verstoringen en lange wachtrijen plagen Schiphol"?
"Schiphol spreekt van "ongewone drukte" ... en weigert de problemen af te schuiven op het nieuwe controlesystem. "
Schiphol won't acknowledge that the problems are due to the new security setup, claiming the airport was "unexpectedly busy".
Tens of thousands of last minute bookings, no doubt!
Johan
Jun 10, 2015, 3:00 am
#328
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Yep, and the excuses they are making up are beyond lame:
"Het is niet zeker dat de drukte met de nieuwe manier van passagierscontrole te maken heeft. "Afgelopen week was het er ook extra druk, maar later bleek dat dat met de treinen te maken had. Daardoor stonden ineens veel passagiers tegelijk voor de controle", aldus de woordvoerder.
Ook in de aankomsthallen was het druk. Volgens Schiphol was daar geen specifieke oorzaak voor aan te geven. "Dat kan soms gebeuren als er veel vliegtuigen tegelijk aan komen.""
In English: The problems are not necessarily due to the new security procedures. Last week was very busy too, but that was caused by the railroads. The long lines at arrivals were not due to any specific cause, this just sometimes happens when many aircraft arrive simultaneously.
What a bunch of totally incompetent and lying morons!
Johan
"Het is niet zeker dat de drukte met de nieuwe manier van passagierscontrole te maken heeft. "Afgelopen week was het er ook extra druk, maar later bleek dat dat met de treinen te maken had. Daardoor stonden ineens veel passagiers tegelijk voor de controle", aldus de woordvoerder.
Ook in de aankomsthallen was het druk. Volgens Schiphol was daar geen specifieke oorzaak voor aan te geven. "Dat kan soms gebeuren als er veel vliegtuigen tegelijk aan komen.""
In English: The problems are not necessarily due to the new security procedures. Last week was very busy too, but that was caused by the railroads. The long lines at arrivals were not due to any specific cause, this just sometimes happens when many aircraft arrive simultaneously.
What a bunch of totally incompetent and lying morons!
Johan
It's the centralization that has created these massive fail choke point lines.
And automated epassport reading gates are not the solution to solving all the issues which were created by the additional government paranoia about passengers leading to a push for more centralization and a switch to increased passport scanning of EU/EEA passport users.
Jun 10, 2015, 3:04 am
#329
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And automated epassport reading gates are not the solution to solving all the issues which were created by the additional government paranoia about passengers leading to a push for more centralization and a switch to increased passport scanning of EU/EEA passport users.
By definition, the e-passport readers scan ALL passports presented - that's how they work.
So, by funnelling EU/EEA passport holders via the e-passport gates, then they INCREASE the number of such passports scanned. So, if they want increased passport scanning - then they should be making all EU/EEA passport holders use such gates - NOT installing them and rarely/never using them.
(In almost all cases where I queue up to present my passport to the Marechaussee, in the EU/EEA passport lines, they don't always scan the passport. And they certainly don't need to have a KMar agent scan the passport - the epassport gates makes every passport holder do the scanning for them!)
Jun 10, 2015, 4:18 am
#330
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An AMS passport control checker looking at the EU/EEA+ passport photo and passenger was a generally faster clearing process than is the case when scanning passports at an e-passport reader and matching person to photo -- whether the passports are self-scanned at an epassport checking gate or not, the (time-eating) relationship is in the same direction -- is part of the process.
The official paranoia about positive and negative match fail rates for manual photo-face matching, and the paranoia about non-visitors and visitors alike, has come with a push for more, slower checks -- including checks reliant upon more technology at EU/Schengen airports and elsewhere in the EU/schengen countries. That has slowed things down on the front and back end. Don't you recall how it used to be frequently the case that AMS passport control would look at the cover of the passport and then simply clear the citizen or stamp the visitor's passport without even caring to examine the biodata passport info? And scanning machine use wasn't even common for EU/EEA passport users; and scanning wasn't even certain for US or Canadian passport users at AMS passport control.
Automation regularizes outcomes in the main, opens a potential window for new, larger systemic fail opportunities, and does some other things good and bad; but automation doesn't necessarily mean that it results in time savings for passengers over other options that were previously in use.
Outsourcing scanning to passengers isn't always a faster thing than leaving it In the hands of professionals or keeping the user base relatively more narrow. Look at how APC kiosk use time in the U.S. has gotten worse since the self-scanning was expanded to non-US/non-Canadians. People don't always realize (or want to acknowledge) that the way people, processes/policies/practices and technology interact means that a self-service automation tool is not guaranteed to come with reduced processing times over what was the case at some earlier period.
Last edited by GUWonder; Jun 10, 2015 at 4:37 am