Security at AMS is run by G4S?

G4S, Securitas and I-SEC

Yeah no kidding.

Nope, of course it's far more convoluted than that: between police and KMar, there's three security companies running the show. What a joke.

According to Luchtvaartnieuws, AMS will test separate security lines for pax with no or little hand luggage. No definition of "little" provided, but I figure I should qualify. Might mean I will end up having to take a guess at which line is faster, priorty or "light".

Schiphol blames the mess on "increasing stringent security checks in recent years due to safety concerns", and on airlines charging for checked bags.

The article also mentions that Schiphol has promised to keep all security lanes open all the time during summer. Not sure what their definition of summer is, but one of the Schengen priority lanes was closed last Wednesday.

Johan

From what I read on UpInTheAir "light" refers to items like a wallet or a phone, so literally someone without anything considered hand luggage. How many of those people are at Schiphol in a day? 2? 5? This seems like a pointless exercise to me.

Again, Schiphol refusing to look at their procedures being bad and simply shoving blame on regulations. Too bad you can't film at checkpoints, it'd be hilarious to do a comparison of 25 airports vs. Schiphol. Same bag, same exact things, horribly different outcome.

As a PE I get to pick an EC seat for free, and board first. As a result, I have the pleasure of having 150+ boarding after me. I usually spend the time reading, but as I'm almost always in an aisle seat I watch the procession out of the corner of my eye, watching out for those who want to whack me over the head with the kitchen sink, or crack my kneecap with a 25+ kg "handbag". With the exception of small kids, I cannot remember when I last saw anyone board emptyhanded. Heck, even tiny tots often have miniature wheely bags.

Johan

Yeah, I fly fairly often with just my wallet and phone and keep an eye out for fellow zero-baggers, but I rarely -- never, really -- see any.

Sound like you will have that new security lane to yourself, then. Congratulations!

Johan

The first time I traveled with no hand luggage at all, I was questioned at the security check why I was traveling without any luggage. New default answer inserted into my repository: "I checked a bag".

early flight this morning so went via T3. Quiet enough, only about two dozen in line at security. Saw no bags being sidetracked for additional inspection but a LOT of additional pat downs, all due to clothing folds in the upper body area.
Clearing passport took 8 minutes or so, self service devices mostly operational.

On the way back, flew in to one of the bus gates so ended up on d-something with the bus.
New thing they're doing now and that is to make pax queue on the arrivals level before letting batches down to border check. 6 self service lines all closed, 6 manned points doing their very best.

LCY had a mix of automated and manned checkpoints, all operational and processing fairly quickly. Upon return I did notice something strange, insisting that liquids were packaged in airport provided bags. On the plus side, their parallel queues for security check (4 seperate positions at one station) seemmed a rather effective way of processing more people

My opinion that automated border check just isn't mature enough yet to deploy, even when working well it's still significantly slower than the old fashioned passport check by a human.

In any case.. Schiphol is not going to improve any time soon and I am going to explore other options

LCY has one of the most efficient security screening I've seen. I wish AMS agents were trained there!

A proper passport check by human will probably take the same time as the e-gate, but many times human checks are not proper, there is no chance in hell that someone looking at my passport from 1m away for 2 seconds and waiving me through (often the case in France/Italy) actually knows my passport is still valid e.g.
of course egates can turn to be very slow paced if PAX don't know how to use them.

Schiphol is announcing 'Summer Measures' for improving load handling during peak summer traffic.

I have my sincere doubts. They are supposedly adding 300-400 more staff and adding more passport gates.