johan rebel

Well . . . let's see if the runways and taxiways melt at AMS today.

That kind of thing happens every day at Jeddah, Riyadh, Kuwait and Doha, so why not at Schiphol?

Johan

mlin32

Reminds me of the freezing days or when some light flurries fall at Schiphol. End of the world.

Xandrios

This is the airline's choice though. They pay extra for an additional bus service, so many don't bother. But they can do that if they wanted to. I've never personally flown into FRA however at ATH many flights are also boarded by bus... and some airlines do choose to have an extra bus for C-class (Most notably A3). On arrival that's great as you'll be off to the terminal within seconds of walking down the stairs.

johan rebel

- arrived by car 10.37. They've closed one of two access lanes to the drop-off zone, which caused a traffic jam halfway back to the A4 freeway. Drivers opportunistically and continuously switching lanes made things worse. Delay under ten minutes.

- tent queue full, but did not extend beyond the tents themselves.

- in Terminal 2 it was bedlam, hordes of confused pax moving in all directions. "Waar is B? Waar is B ergens?"

- through the "back door" Privium gate at 10.39. Checkpoint manned, pax who hadn't even checked in yet were trying to get through, for whatever reason.

- upstairs the only option was to turn left. About 50 people ahead of me in the Priority line. An agent was randomly feeding families with infants and toddlers into the priority line. Fine by me, but that's a recipe for slowing things down.

- the regular lines were packed as far as the eye could see, but were moving at a decent pace. Priority line was stop and go.

- two checkpoints for priority pax. I fortunately got a tray loading station on the right, the checkpoint on the left was hogged by a family with a platoon of toddlers and the usual truckload of stuff.

- neither of my bags went to secondary. Good thing, because there was initially only one agent on duty, who was responsible for the adjacent regular checkpoint as well. The backlog was four trays each.

- cleared security at 10.51.

- Schengen/non-Schengen immigrations busy, but line did not extend beyond the tensabarriers. Just as I arrived they opened the E-gates. Privium gate took 30 seconds.

- Privium ClubLounge West at 10.59.


​​​
Car to lounge 22 minutes. No complaints.

Now let's see if KLM will play ball.

Johan

johan rebel

Four kids in the West lounge today, in the 12-14 range, I'd say. As is the norm these days, they are in a world of their own, mesmerized by various screens and with earphones in. Three cheers for digital pacifiers.

Edited to add that I saw a girl of about 10 as well. Fine by me, behavior matters more than age.

Johan

b12e

After AF doing the same a few weeks back, a "personal" message from KL's CEO, Marjan Rintel.

AF's message here: https://imgur.com/a/43pxLxo

Edit: Now also received it in Dutch. At least the English version was "personal", this just says "dear customer":
https://imgur.com/a/zjNCSIa

mlin32

I think LH sent something similar to their HON or Senator members, while slipping in the significant fact that many German airports are suspending priority security controls

"We're sorry for the inconvenience, we'll do better; oh by the way, we're ending priority security controls, so pack some extra time".

By the way, I suppose the queues at passport contrôle in AMS for correspondances are not too bad thesedays ?

b12e

That's... sneaky.
It heavily depends on the time of day, and how many long haul / TATL are departing or arriving at that time. In peak times, queues can be crazy. But usually it's relatively fine. Johan has a recent datapoint a few posts up.

johan rebel

Incoming flight 10 minutes early, so 50 minutes to turn the flight around.

Catering and fuel truck arrived promptly, luggage was unloaded. Then everybody vanished. It's now 12 minutes past STD, five carts full of bags are sitting on the apron, with no indication that they will be loaded anytime soon.

Plane at the next gate had no issues and has departed.

Update: loading started at STD+16, looks as if it will take them 20 minutes in all. Captain finally made an announcement at STD+20. He had the temerity to blame the delay on late incoming aircraft (a lie), which in turn he blamed on the heat (huh?).

Two pax boarded at STD+10. Bet they appreciated the delay.

J pax got a bottle of water, don't know about coach. Cabin not too hot (35°C / 95°F at Schiphol now).

Johan

johan rebel

Four of us arrived by car this morning. One was on another flight, no idea what happened to him. Another had SkyPriority, he was about 20 pax behind me (Privium) in the priority security line. The fourth, (3 XP short of Gold), had to take the long route: 3 hours. There was a party directly in front of him with a lady of about 65, who was sitting on the bags on the trolley they were pushing. After the long tent excursion, just as they had entered the terminal again, this lady keeled off the trolley and onto the floor, unconscious.

Johan

Xandrios

Waahaat? That's an absurd measure. So now we'll have people from western Germany come to AMS to depart from there? Colleague reported over 3hr wait at DUS last week (Early morning departure).

Last Friday morning I departed from BRU after my flight out of AMS got cancelled. Had been years since I've been at BRU last.

- Hella busy at check in, but lines seemed manageable. I was HBO.
- Regular security <10 min
- Priority security empty
- Water for sale at 1 euro/bottle after security

I had kept a 3hr buffer after arriving with the train from AMS but was airside in less than 15 minutes after arriving. Was flying TUI so no priority... however at the airport website you can actually purchase Priority security access irrelevant from your ticket type (for like 12 euro). Awesome! More airports should be doing that.

Anyway I was pleasantly surprised about DUS. Smooth experience. The train ride is a bit shady (We had ~15 min delay due to a signal-malfunction, which could also have turned into hours of delay), but besides that I'd say BRU would be a good alternative. The direct train is comfortable enough, reasonable fast (~2hr) and prices are low (I only paid 50 euro in 1st, booking one week out).

b12e

BRU usually has an empty priority line. At least in my experience.

Water for sale at 1 eur has been as long as the new connector was opened, even unpoliced. Just grab a bottle from the shelf and deposit your euro, dollar, or whatever you have on you. I guess there's very little theft (and a lot of trust from the Brussels Airport Company).

Did they stop doing the "staging" in tents in front of the airport building? They did that last year when it got too busy at check-in desks.

ArnoldB

I have seen that KLM is offering free rebookings (no change fee, no fare difference) due to the chaos for flights booked before 8 July departing between 8-23 July:

https://www.klm.at/information/trave...-waiting-times

Any estimation whether they will expand this after the 23rd?

HadesNL

I've gotten a SQ survey + filled in their online feedback form about the lounge allocation and hope to hear a clarifying answer soon.
I'll post their answer here

HadesNL

That is really sad it happened to her, if i would be her i would only get up again when 8 uur journaal / public news cameras arrive on the scene to document her story to let Schiphol atone for this poor woman.