Originally Posted by bodory (Post 28321446)

So it seems the situation for security at AMS is as bad the passport controls in CDG - the folks at AF/KL management must be very happy.

Anyway, I am transiting in AMS soon, something that did not happened to me since a while. Is the situation for connecting pax (Schengen to International, 100 minutes connection) as bad as the one for departing pax?

Originally Posted by MarLim (Post 28322433)

If you have a European passport and the automated gates are working, you are fine. I passed transit from Schengen 3 weeks ago in about 2 minutes and back into Schengen last Tuesday morning rushhour in about 1 minute. However for Non European passports it was a complete chaos with certainly about an hour waiting time. I could not see any signage for skypriority but in the whole chaos you could not see either that for Europeans there are machines without queue, you have to know and box your way to the front of the chaos. Leaving Schengen at the same time, the machines were out of order. Wait time probably 15-30 minutes.

Originally Posted by btonkid12345 (Post 28220059)

A British man in a suit (sans tie) walked past the less than 10 person line at 9:21 a.m. Monday morning, claiming he has a 9:40 a.m. flight.

Me and my friend were a few people in front of him, and we had a 9:50 a.m. flight and weren't saying anything. He physically pushed his way past passengers, did not ask if anyone was OK with it, and when the employee manning the line called his Supervisor over, the Supervisor deescalated and let him cut everyone. Ugh.

He dropped a few F bombs in there at everyone and was just a total d!ck. If it were a US airport I would have relished being seen him taken away (civilly) because he decided to swear at and assault employees manning the line, just because his travel plans are more important than everyone else's.



I spoke calmly with the Supervisor about the above incident. He offered to have us cut everyone else, too, but I declined.

The wait to go through the detectors was not the bad part. The bad part was more than half of the PRIORITY bags were being sent for secondary inspection. And the geniuses manning that process were scanning every pulled back an extra 2-3 times.

This is despite me pulling out all of my cables on the first push through. They re-scanned empty sunglasses cases. Guess what the culprit was, after all the security theater? A pack of Kleenex wipes that the agent claimed looked like a liquid. ?!?!

Got to the gate at 9:40 for the 9:50 flight, and luckily 1/3 of the plane was still boarding. But man, the entitled travelers and the nonsensical security process - priority or otherwise - is a major detractor for AMS-originating travel.

Originally Posted by MarLim (Post 28322433)

If you have a European passport and the automated gates are working, you are fine. I passed transit from Schengen 3 weeks ago in about 2 minutes and back into Schengen last Tuesday morning rushhour in about 1 minute. However for Non European passports it was a complete chaos with certainly about an hour waiting time. I could not see any signage for skypriority but in the whole chaos you could not see either that for Europeans there are machines without queue, you have to know and box your way to the front of the chaos. Leaving Schengen at the same time, the machines were out of order. Wait time probably 15-30 minutes.

Originally Posted by PresRDC (Post 28369431)

Went through this morning and was told my solid deodorant was a liquid. In over 50 airports, this has never been an issue, but, apparently, at AMS, solids are actually liquids.

I was allowed to keep it, though, which really seemed to defeat the whole purpose.

Originally Posted by jadecocoa (Post 28393019)

Apologies if this is the wrong forum.

I am arriving on a July Saturday 12:35pm on DL from the USA, connecting at 20:00 on Tarom to Bucharest. Non-EU citizen and no status.

I planned this layover so I could go to town and visit a museum. In light of the present situation in Schiphol, should I reconsider and hang out at the airport instead?

Thanks

Originally Posted by Xandrios (Post 28393422)

I'm assuming you will check your luggage straight to OTP?

If your flight is somewhat on time you should be able to be in the city center at 13:30-14:00. Its less than 30 minutes by train. For your flight at 20:00 I would aim to be back at the airport around 17:30 (I don't think saturday nights are particular busy at the airport, but still good to leave at least 2 hours.)

That gives you 2PM-7PM in the city center - plenty of time to go see a museum if you know where you are going. Do keep in mind though that many of the big museums (Rijksmuseum, Van Gogh, etc) are at the Museum square which is not actually in the center - and it takes a little time to get there with public transport. So if you would want to see any of those I would suggest to take a cab from the airport to get you straight there, instead of having to mess around with tram/bus/taxi from within the city center. Of course there are also plenty of museums in the actual city center to choose from :)

Originally Posted by Xandrios (Post 28393422)

For your flight at 20:00 I would aim to be back at the airport around 17:30 (I don't think saturday nights are particular busy at the airport, but still good to leave at least 2 hours.)

Originally Posted by Xandrios (Post 28396466)

Yes, but flights to OTP depart from non-Shengen.

Originally Posted by Xandrios (Post 28393422)

I'm assuming you will check your luggage straight to OTP?

If your flight is somewhat on time you should be able to be in the city center at 13:30-14:00. Its less than 30 minutes by train. For your flight at 20:00 I would aim to be back at the airport around 17:30 (I don't think saturday nights are particular busy at the airport, but still good to leave at least 2 hours.)

That gives you 2PM-7PM in the city center - plenty of time to go see a museum if you know where you are going. Do keep in mind though that many of the big museums (Rijksmuseum, Van Gogh, etc) are at the Museum square which is not actually in the center - and it takes a little time to get there with public transport. So if you would want to see any of those I would suggest to take a cab from the airport to get you straight there, instead of having to mess around with tram/bus/taxi from within the city center. Of course there are also plenty of museums in the actual city center to choose from :)

Originally Posted by Carel1 (Post 28396803)

If you want to go to the Museumsquare it is faster to take a train from the airport to Amsterdam-Zuid (travel time less than 10 minutes) and then take tram 5 to the Museumsquare (about 10 minutes).