flyingcrazy

A wonderful world for robots...

DeppityDawg

Probably mentioned elsewhere already, but the Schengen Lounge 25 is now open until 18:00. Good news for my few remaining passport pages!

Digicola

Good news for B gate departures too

DeppityDawg

I spoke too soon, because then I had the problem in the opposite direction: the Schengen lounge 25 opens at 6 am, non-Schengen lounge 52 not until 7 am. So I still had to do the back-and-forth (early morning non-Schengen flight, and they absolutely would not let me do it the easy way by entering through Departures 1).

KLflyerRalph

Does anybody know if KLM still (since the more stringent measures went into effect last week) serves alcohol in the NS CL 52 between 20:00 and closing?

arjen05

That's an interesting question indeed. The measures from last week would allow them to continue serving alcohol, but in the meantime Schiphol has forbidden distribution and use of alcohol after 8pm and the government measures for hotels (exempt from the country-wide closure of bars/restaurants/alcohol lock) have just become more strict: they also aren't allowed to serve alcohol after 8pm.

On a sidenote I'm wondering whether KL still serves alcohol on board their flights after 8pm NL time - if I remember well Dutch laws apply on board of Dutch planes. Would that also apply to emergency ordinances and regulations?

johan rebel

Finally!

The number of lives that will save is beyond counting. All those late evening drunks not minding their step at the end of a moving walkway, tripping and then breaking their neck are now a thing of the past. What a relief.

Johan

arjen05

I can now confirm that just before 20.00h an announcement is made that no alcohol is served after that time in lounge 52. Lounge 25 is only open until 18.00h.

AlvinMaker

I confirm they do - wine was served on my flight that departed after 8pm.

flyingcrazy

I'm glad Schiphol has banned alcohol after 8. As we know, the virus likes to nap until 8 when it wonders out for a drink (unless you are in Scotland where it likes to get up at 6). If drink is not available after 8, it will lose interest and probably stay in bed. Genius thinking from the airport management.

However as mentioned up thread you are entirely safe in the schengen lounge anyway as the virus cant be bothered with passport control.

On my recent trip to AMS (last week) I was fascinated to learn that the virus mainly lingers about the KLM lounge but not in the aspire lounge! In the aspire lounge I was treated like an adult and allowed to pour myself a drink, walk whichever direction I like etc but in the KLM one they has disconnected the self serve drinks (apart from for coffee which of course makes complete sense). I can only assume cause the virus prefers the view from the klm lounge?

However the aspire lounge in BHX I was rightfully treated like a diseased leper and asked to download an app! Isn't it odd how the virus behaves so differently in different places?

johan rebel

Gosh, I'm not so sure. There's an extremely small chance that those in charge of fighting the virus, and those who feel an irresistible urge to take charge, are just making things up as they go along, in the mistaken belief that they must be seen to do something, no matter what, to reassure the public.

I've been laughing my head off since March, but it just keeps getting more ridiculous by the day. When it comes to restricting your freedom in the name of fighting this new highly lethal bubonic plague, creativity knows no bounds. The great discrepancies in said creativity between countries, states, and cities are simply a result of the fact that they all base their decisions on the same sound, knowledgeable and consistent scientific advice provided by an army of experts, all of whom are in unanimous agreement.

But I guess we should be grateful. If we hadn't been instructed to stand back-to-back in elevators, wear shoes on the beach, abstain from alcohol, disinfect our groceries, avoid buffets like the plague, and so forth, a third of the world's population might well be six foot under by now, and most of the rest heading in the same direction.

Johan

San Gottardo

It's of course fair to be completely amazed by the discrepancy of approaches and rules from one coutry to another, one company to another, etc. It basically shows that they have no clue. Which I cannot blame them for, given that this is a new virus whose behaviour isn't properly understood yet. So, yes, they have no clue, yet they (have to) decide, as there is one thing that is actually happening: emergency wards are filling up fast, and when you have reached a point where you can't treat people properly anymore then you have a problem. Doesn't explain or justify closing one lounge at 18h and the other one at 20h, but something has to be done. The next few weeks will be interesting. The Netherlands, France, Germany, Switzerland, all imposed new restrictions of varying degrees of strictness - let's see which method will work best.

However, the really ridiculous point is how some people are obsessed with getting their alcohol, preferably in a lounge. Corona or not, this is pathetic. Can't you do a trip without alcohol? What is the problem with that? Why are you not treated "like an adult" when you can't get free booze? If you can't live without the stuff, fine, but pesting about how different countries/companies/lounges try to handle a sanitary crisis with very little knowledge about the virus only because it impacts your intake of alcohol - seriously?

maalloc

Interesting point. I'm one of these flyers who do enjoy having a drink before take off, so I'll bring in my 2cts. Alcohol in lounges makes the layover nicer, and long-hauls feel shorter.
So same as every habit/addiction, when you are used to it and it's taken away, it feels wrong - especially if the reasons seem random and unjustified.

While I see why this might seem pathetic (I do find it incredibly sad when I hear my smoker friends refuse to fly because they can't live 12h without a smoke), don't just focus on the vocal reactions about alcohol on this forum.
We pestered as much when Coke and Sparking Water were removed from AF service - and I highly doubt any of us have any serious addiction to either of those Some people just get mad at arbitrary rules.

NickB

There undoubtedly are things that we don't fully understand, or at any rate don't understand with sufficient precision/detail about the covid-19 virus and its transmission, but it does not follow from this that differences in practices between countries or companies are evidence that we have no clue.

It seems to me that there is often in many sections of the general public a perception that risk matters are binary, that either there is a risk or there is not and that a risk management measure is designed to completely eradicate a risk, otherwise it is meaningless. You see reflection of that in comments like "why don't they leave theatres/pubs open when the risk in those places is no worse and even lower than in supermarkets?" or questioning the imposition of a curfew at 9pm, as if the imposition of a curfew implied a belief of the authorities that the virus only circulates at night. A corollary of that approach to risk is that, if two countries or two companies adopt different measures to address a risk, then it must follow that one is right and the other is wrong as there can only be one single optimal answer: the one that reduces the risk to zero (or, if not zero, the minimum possible) without going beyond what is strictly necessary to achieve that aim.

The reality, of course, is that risk management is in most cases not binary, not black and white but rather a continuous range of shades of grey. Precise choices on how to fight the spread of covd-19 may vary from one state to another but it seems to me that the range of answers within a global region (within Europe in our case) is remarkably similar and what changes is the intensity. Pretty much all European states have taken steps to encourage social distancing. What varies from one state to another is the intensity of those measures. Some put more emphasis on encouragement and a sense of social responsibility whereas others put more emphasis of enforcement of binding rules. There is a range of tools, from closure of certain establishments (entertainment venues, etc...), restricting geographical or temporal range of allowed movements (prohibiting movement out of a certain area, curfews) to full lockdown at home for most of the time except for essentials.

Those choices will be affected by a range of factors and I am not convinced that it is lack of knowledge and understanding that is the main one to explain differences between countries. I would have thought that other factors, such as cultural factors (eg: whether you expect a high level of voluntary compliance in the population or not), medical resources available (whether you have plenty of spare hospital capacity, in particular ICU beds and personnel), how your health system is organised, how you enforcement system is organised and what enforcement culture exists in your country, at what stage you are in the spread of the disease, the economic situation of the country, etc... offer a rather better explanation of variations than lack of knowledge as such.

To put it differently, even if we could assess the risk perfectly well and all shared the very same risk assessment, it still does not follow that the risk management measures that we take would necessarily be exactly the same in each country. And variations in risk management measures would not in themselves necessarily indicate that one country has the "right" policy and others have wrong policies. It is not as if there is a single point in the range from black to white, a single shade of grey which is the "right" shade of grey.

The same is true at the level of individual companies. The kind of measures that you are likely to adopt will tend to depend on the kind of safety culture in your business, whether it tends to be more risk averse or, on the contrary, more tolerant of risk. It will also depend on other considerations. Depending on how your premises are arranged, the size of the population you expect to use those premises, whether you are a very large corporation which has to design common rules for thousands of different offices with different population vs a small start-up with 3 employees, all of this will affect the kind of measures you will adopt to address a given risk. Some will go for the absolute legal minimum they can get away with (or even less for the less scrupulous). Others will go above that minimum threshold. It does not follow from this that the legal minimum is 'the' right answer or that the more cautious one is 'the' right answer either.

NickB

There is also a cultural dimension to alcohol consumption, which makes restrictions on the consumption of alcohol bear a flavour of puritanism associated with certain strands within the reformation, notably in its US-evangelical versions, and which is often perceived in Europe as infantilising (hence the frequent references in this context to not being treated like an adult) and therefore gives the issue a more emotive dimension.