Sky Priority Security check at Schiphol
 

Does anyone have any experience of this?

I am a regular traveller from AMS and while the Sky Priority check-in is fine, the security is a total disaster. Only one of the two belts is ever operational and they constantly let people from the normal queue into this area. In other security checks Sky Priority people are escorted or told to go to the front of the queue but here you are often stuck behind 15-20 people who they let through from the normal queue.

Not only that, but there seems to be loads of staff standing around doing nothing and most trays with people's personal belongings always get sent to a second longer queue for individual inspections because someone didn't take the cables out of their bag.

It's just an absolute circus. I don't know what KLM can do. Presumably they have a service level agreement with the airport.

Nothing new I'm afraid, but it is still much better than the normal queue, if you are stuck behind 15-20 PAX in SP queue, there are probably 200 in the normal queue, is that not the case?

https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/klm-...ional-ams.html

That's no consolation, 'cause those 15 or 20 should not be in the Priority queue in the first place.

Johan

I'm sure the other queue is worse but there is nothing Priority about the SP queue. It often takes me 15-20 minutes to get through which is way too long. It should take 5-10 minutes max. In other airports I'm often through in less than 5 minutes. Most bags get sidelined for individual inspections and staff are standing around not telling passengers what they need to remove from their bags. Even cables, chargers and headphones need to be removed. It's a complete farce.

Today was the worst I've ever seen it because of backlog caused by yesterday's storm. They totally lost control and the SP queue was full of economy passengers in a rush to get their flights. There must have been at least 150 people in front of me in the SP queue and yet again only one belt working. It took over an hour to get through today.

Yes, there is even a thread dedicated to this.

It's pretty bad. The non-SP queue is worse. Privium doesn't improve it much. Welcome to the worst part of Schiphol. It has maybe gotten a bit better with time.

YMMV but I flew with TAP the other day so used to priority entrance at the far right in Departures 1. The staff paused the line and we were led immediately to the front. No queuing at all. I don't know if this is a result of a well-trained staff member, the location or that it is generally less crowded with priority PAX as it is not fed directly from the SP check-in.

On a day like that, frequent AMS PAX will miss the dedicated entrance from the parking garage.

Are we talking Shengen or Non-Shengen?

For Shengen I dont think I have seen more than a 10 minute wait in the past years, though often (almost always) an annoying ~10 economy pax being led to the SP line.

For non Shengen upstairs its a different story. Monday morning around 8.30AM; the holding pen totally full until (and slightly beyond) the boarding pass scanners. Still was able to clear the line in about 30 minutes though.

I wish AMS had the same priority lane than at LHR Term 4. With this system no regular pax can be send there and you get through in 2mins ...

They used to have one, albeit for Privium pax only.

Johan

Schiphol Sky Priority security is in absolute state of mental paranoia manned by bunch of unskilled, illiterate & incompetent bumblers.

My umbrella was detected as some high intruding object inside my hand baggage and all hell got loose..... And I thought the TSA was worst!

These rowdy bumblers neither trust full body scanner nor their baggage scanning equipment, and derive pleasure touching people & their body parts shamelessly.

Schiphol airport has always had a bumpy relationship with KLM. I cannot understand why Priority & Business class pax are treated with such shoddy treatment.

Do ever management of KLM & Schiphol conduct audits or evaluate performance of these security thugs behaviour patterns? These guys from the look & behaviour don't appear to be from Europe but appears to be contracted from some third class country where apparently they were kicked out of their jobs, and ended up at Schiphol!

In short the days are near when you need to dress only in underwear or even better go naked and still you may not pass out security with full marks!

What's left now to say after this humiliating indecent incident at FRA which defines state of mind of these sick fellows: http://bit.ly/2lSA8sE & http://bbc.in/2klXLt5

It's a gong show upstairs. Better be sure to remove anything from your luggage with a cable, battery, diode, button, or anything other than clothes really. Have had my bag routed to secondary for umbrella, electric toothbrush, headphones, my watch... you name it. Now I stuff all of that stuff in a large clear Ziploc bag -- and it still gets shuttled to secondary 50% of the time. I pass through AMS 4-6 times per month, and it's getting worse weekly.

I was sternly reprimanded for leaving a single small USB cable in my bag today. Where do they find these people? What a great airport hamstrung by terrible overdone security theatre.

I've only ever been asked to take my laptop charger out of my bag. I travel everywhere with a bunch of computer cables (ethernet, firewire, thunderbolt, the works) rolled up.

Same case here. The dumb woman had no clue what to do with the 'suspicious' umbrella, and belled her supervisor on phone. The angry faced fellow came (appeared middle eastern in origin) and shouted what the hell am I carrying?

Told him I remember now, that's an umbrella & earphone which I forgot to take out in all the midst of storm, flight cancellation & then he let me go stating our scanner 'got confused'!

I am positive that these amateurs are not skilled enough and are learning like on the job training and do not trust the electronic scanner system.

Shouting & screaming shows their frustation & lack of confidence of their jobs.

Is any one from Schiphol Management / Dutch aviation board reading this blog?

Until something is done these guys will remain as self-styled security kings of Schiphol & can do whatever they want without any shame or compassion to any one.