johan rebel

Early evening yesterday Tuesday, T2 non-Schengen.

Very quiet, no lines at priority security. Agent on duty confirmed that the past weekend had been pure hell, though.

I soon spotted the dreaded jams at secondary at both priority checkpoints. I was directed to what seemed to be the least bad one. While I waited, 13 out of 15 bags were sent to secondary, including one of mine. What was so special about the latter? It contained a pair of glasses in a case, a small electric shaver and a small point-and-shoot camera. None of these has ever attracted any attention at any airport security checkpoint before, AMS included, but now they had suddenly become suspicious items. Bizarre!

A tray containing a MacBook and charger was also sent to secondary, to the amazement and bewilderment of the owner. Another tray containing a lightweight jacket suffered the same fate, but who knows what dangerous items were in the pockets. A comb of a set of keys, perhaps?

Johan

CyBeR

Same for Schengen. Went though at about 17:00 and there was no line to speak of anywhere.


My bag also went to secondary but that was just because I'd missed a set of screwdrivers, which luckily they let me take with me because they were small.

evanderm

I always get in to an argument with the staff member at the tray loading stations at AMS.

I refuse to put my passport through the x-ray machines, keeping it on me or within sight at all times throughout my travels. When they bark at me that EVERYTHING must go in to the trays I simply reply: 'no, I am going to hold on to my passport' and then I walk to the scanners. Sometimes they yell at me as I'm walking away, other times they just roll their eyes. It's never been a problem for the staff at the scanners, and once a supervisor confirmed that if I wanted to hold on to it it's fine; it may just be subject to a manual search afterwards. I hold the passport above my head in the machines, hand it to the security staff on the other side for a quick flip through the pages and am on my way. I'm waiting for the day when I get a retaliatory manual search of my bags. No such misfortune yet...

mfkne

Schiphol is going build an additional, new temporary departure hall for Schengen destinations atop the existing baggage hall: http://www.upinthesky.nl/2016/10/13/...voor-schengen/.

It is scheduled to open May 2017 and is expected to remain open through 2019.

Bad news: This marks the end of the Privium bridge, at least until April 2017: https://twitter.com/Schiphol/status/786573241263460352.

thomas199023

My carry-on, backpack and computor that was in seperate box, all got sent to secondary. My GF's carry-on and her purse as well... AS well as 75% off all the stuff other people had.

Aparantly they didn't like my DSLR in my carry-on. and my back-up charger in my backpack. And my GF beer bottle opener in hers. They've gone MAD!!!!

All these were no problem upon arriving in USA...

thomas199023

Ah yes, forgot about this, they didn't like my Mac charger either and had it screened separately...

Calchas

So is there any point to Privium now?

Grouchy

Everyone has to answer that question for themselves. The (security & passport) lines are getting longer and longer from my experience the last couple of weeks. Most likely to control those long regular lines the linemanagers are starting to direct pax from those lines to the SP/privium lines, even if they are already like 6-8 SP/Privium pax waiting in line.
Plus when seeing the lines at passport control due the Delta morning rush or after arriving from China and with another widebody arriving from Asia just before your flight; it's totally worth it

mfkne

It depends on the individual situation indeed. If your travel is mostly (or exclusively) within Schengen and you have status already with an airline that allows you access the priority lane at security then there's no added value in a Privium membership.

If you mostly travel outside of Schengen and/or do not have access to priority security otherwise it may still be a good value proposition.

Another user name to remember

I use the P2 bridge all the time based on Flying Blue status or (when not travelling on KLM) illegally: I fit the profile (slick looking business traveller ) and I'm never ever asked for any proof for the use of this perk. But at the main entry, that is of course a different story.

Must admit, after spending 45 minutes waiting in line last Wednesday afternoon for Schengen security, getting Privium again for a year seems very tempting. I know in the old days, Privium was a lot better with private security, but in the current set up it still beats the regular line...

mfkne

In case you missed it: The bridge will be closed at least until the construction of the temporary additional departure hall is complete next year.

Another user name to remember

I'm aware of that: that is why I had to join the line at the main entry last Wednesday and spend 45 minutes to get past security.

And, as contradicting as it may sound, is the reason I might rejoin Privium...

Ditto

The other day in non-Shcnegen security departures 2, the guy looking at the monitor looked like he was just woken up 5 minutes ago, 2 out of 4 of my trays went to secondary.
My backpack didn't, as I successfully put everything that was manually checked the previous time in another tray, but that of course means that other tray went to secondary... so what's the point?
Seems like a small bag (about the size of the amenity kits given by AF) with 1 HDMI cable, 2 micro usb cables (+chargers) and 1 network cable is just too much and has to be manually checked.
The other tray had a laptop, a laptop charger and a jacket that had nothing in the pockets...

mfkne

Just experienced my first vindictive secondary: The lady manning the bodyscanner wanted a better explanation than "it's voluntary" for why I didn't want to use it but I didn't provide any. So she took my tray and handed it to a guy at secondary. I didn't make much difference because the entire secondary belt was full, causing the belt that's feeding it to clog up, so everyone was stuck. My backpack went to secondary too, they didn't see anything on the image and sent it to X-ray again, and handed it back to me without comments.

It goes without saying that they seemed to be in a competition of who can work most slowly without being declared dead.

And finally the ultimate feature of the security setup there is flight crew feeding into priority security. It takes a certain brilliance to come up with something as fubar as that.

Ditto

Today it was an umbrulla in my back pack that triggered it going to secondary.
It apparently looked so dangerous that they swabbed my bag first before asking me to open it .