Percentage of Status holders on KLM/AirFrance flights
Oct 19, 2021, 3:44 am
#46
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Oct 2000
Posts: 14,352
Off topic, but I thought Schiphol is one of the airports where the scanners are not setup in a way they recognize differences in priority / class / status for passengers. At least for the security filters and the boarding areas I know that regardless of priority, everyone can enter priority security lanes or boarding areas, unless a physical person stops them after a visual boarding pass check.
This year I've mostly used the new T1 lanes on the 2nd floor. At less busy times it has generally been a free-for-all, i.e. the so-called priority lane(s) could be accessed by all and sundry, regardless of which side they were coming from. When pax numbers were higher the access was usually supervised, but the job of agent in charge seems to be to ensure a regular flow of pax to all lanes, including the priority one(s). The latter are to be kept just as busy as the rest, so the second there's a lull on the priority entrance side, regular pax fill the gap. They seem to think that having some 10 pax waiting in line at a "priority" lane is about right.
Schiphol could provide proper priorty security if it wanted to, and given that it charges airlines for this service, the latter should demand that it does. Preventing the mixing of pax with proper physical barriers, proper supervision and BC / Privium scanners directly at the access points would go a very long way. It can be done, and used to be. Some may remember that the Privium lounge had its very own dedicated lane, with direct access from the lounge.
Anyway, I'me digressing. There's a dedicated thread on this topic. The mods may want to consider moving the relevant posts in this thread there.
Johan
Oct 19, 2021, 4:51 pm
#47
Join Date: May 2009
Location: AMS
Posts: 2,067
I think Schiphol sees priority security more as a separate line (which is indeed shorter, to their credit) and not so much separate lanes. They want to use the available lanes as efficiently as possible, which includes feeding non-priority pax into the ones that the priority line feeds into.
Last edited by CyBeR; Oct 19, 2021 at 4:58 pm
Oct 20, 2021, 2:56 am
#48
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Oct 2000
Posts: 14,352
I think Schiphol sees priority security more as a separate line (which is indeed shorter, to their credit) and not so much separate lanes. They want to use the available lanes as efficiently as possible, which includes feeding non-priority pax into the ones that the priority line feeds into.
Yes, the priority line is usually shorter, but it also feeds into a single lane, or at most two. The usually longer regular line feeds into a far larger number of lanes. Depending on how many are open, that could be a half dozen or more. And there lies the rub. Using the available lanes as efficiently as possible by feeding regular pax into the priorty lane(s) is cheaper than opening additional regular lanes.
To make matters worse, you get that fantastic Schiphol specialty, the Secondary Lottery. A single CYA-type agent in the priority lane is all it takes to screw things up. While waiting at secondary I have plenty of time to look around, and do. Adjacent regular lanes where only few bags are sent for secondary can easily process 12-15 pax in the time that I'm waiting for my tray to reach secondary, and then several more while my stuff is being checked again.
Johan