KLflyerRalph

Where did you enter the line to go up the stairs?

flyerkit

Arrived at 1pm for 4pm flight. No baggage.
45mins queue to get to the boarding pass gates on ground floor International Departures.
10 further mins to get up the stairs. Saved 10mins getting to security as premium passenger. Then 25mins after security to get through passports. UK passports now added to the egates which were mostly working (human stamping after gates) total, baggage free about 90mins. Better than feared.




Half way point of the ground floor queue

Free water...

flyerkit

The start of the line was behind the checkins near the travelex, the queue snaked round behind the checkin desks to behind the British Airways desks, folded back about 6 times then ran back past the wheelchair area to the boarding pass gates.

Arpoador

My mother reported staying 1,5 hrs in the NS to S security queue today. No queue at passport control.

Crismyth

To answer my own question, we got through privium in departures 3. We had to cross the regular line that was snaking all around the terminal at the gates there was a man standing there at the barrier letting crew through. At first he said we could not pass to use the privium gate before security but I managed to convince him we could. People were not allowed up the stairs at that point they were being led around it. But on showing our privium card we were allowed up the stairs, through the next privium gate and low and behold the regular security check was the same and we merged in. The narrow small walkway to the eye scanners was crowded with crew and wheelchair passengers. But out of nowhere our hero appeared who pushed everybody out of our way cleared a path and led us to the empty eye scanners! (crew and wheelchairs stay left whilst scanners are on the right) 45 minutes from check in to the lounge! We felt very lucky privium worked out for us...

johan rebel

Does anybody know where Schiphol CEO Benschop and his minions are hiding? Or have they all jetted off on a Meivakantie?

I may have missed it, but has any of them made a public appearance, spoken to the media, etc? A mea culpa plus apology would be nice.

Johan

HadesNL

Schiphol airport predicts that untill the end of the May holiday weeks,
busy moments will remain at peak times around 14.00H daily.


https://nos.nl/artikel/2427221-schiphol-verwacht-morgen-minder-reizigers-maar-het-blijft-druk

https://www.nu.nl/binnenland/6198278/geen-nieuwe-annuleringen-op-schiphol-maandag-opnieuw-drukte-verwacht.html

HadesNL

Benschop might be lost in the Q that is the snaking labyrinth or he might have been caught in the madrush and been trampled upon.

That leaves me with opnions/quote of Peter & Judith aka the passengers caught in this mess:

Fabo.sk

What a mess. It's like, this can't not be on purpose, but who is protesting whom?

The only place that only has Privium scanner is the side access to SkyPriority zone, the red one in my schematic posted previously. All other checkpoints have a privium scanner and a boarding pass scanner on priority side.

The checkpoint in the walkway was the temporary checkpoint while normal Departures 1 checkpoint was being redone/moved upstairs. AFAIK it has been closed since the new Dep 1 filter opened.

You'd think that of all the bottlenecks possible at Schiphol, KMar would be the one that would be least affected... apparently not.

I'll suggest to your tourists to explore using transfer passport control to enter Schengen. The baggage claims are connected, so they can still find their belt.

xarantine

We had a taste of this chaos on Saturday getting to BA431.

• Arrived with hours to spare only to be confronted with a queue snaking along the front of the terminal, and a guard letting a few people in at a time (COVID measure? Anti-crowding measure? Pointless "this is something we can do so we must do it"?), except when he was distracted by someone else and we could just walk in as we pleased.
• Screens said BA431 bag drop was at counter 18, but there was nobody at counter 18, and a note written in pencil on the window (that you could only really see if you peered at the desks) saying to go to counter 17. Off to 17 we went, along with some other pax I herded along.
• One person doing bag drop, and everyone seemed to have some issue or other causing delay - I imagine because the earlier BA429 was apparently cancelled - so a loooong time queuing ensued. When we'd dropped our bags, the check-in agent told us "security is very busy so please rush". Yeah... like that was possible.
• The security line stretched from the stairs up to the security area down to the high-numbered check-in desks, back and forth a few times, then all the way to the other end of departures, back and forth a few more times, and almost out of the door. More queuing.
• Probably the most comical thing was that we were all told in no uncertain terms that masks were strictly required in security, but not apparently in the departures area. Clearly Schiphol's epidemiologists have worked out that COVID rises with heat.
• By this point we had about 30 mins before the scheduled departure time, having lost about three hours in various queues. Through security and exit controls we finally got, and ran to D18. My OH told me to run ahead as I move faster, so I duly did. I regretted that when I got to the gate, presented both our boarding passes (which I had kept hold of in the chaos) and said "she'll be along in a moment". The gate agent thought this was highly irregular, and my apologies and explanations about the hell we'd just gone through didn't matter. "Why do you have her boarding pass?" "Why hasn't she got it?" "I need to make a note of this irregularity"(!). OH turned up and apparently then all was well, and we could board - clearly whatever security concern we were evaporated as soon as it materialised.
• Weirdest thing about this is that we were one of the last to board despite thinking we were one of the first ~40 or so through. Was the flight full of people shifted from BA429, and if you were unlucky enough to check in much after we did you ended up getting bumped? Or does Schiphol have time warp zones as well as a staffing crisis?

All in all a happy ending - we made the flight unlike some poor sods that weekend. That said, given the issues, I think I'll not transit through AMS when flying to Aruba this summer - I'll pay the extra and go via JFK, perhaps with a long layover to go have a meal in the city.

Xandrios

Thanks for the details. If you had to guess, how much time do you believe was spent in the queue to enter the terminal, and then for security?

Upupintheair

Just passed through departures 3 security, took about 5 min. Zero queues, priority and non-priority teh same, passport control not busy either, so apparently the mass had move through the airport by the time I got there. Pleasantly surprised!

HadesNL

Unexpectedly:

I need to travel upcoming sunday morning ( *moan* )
I will be departing on the United flight at 11.15 to Houston from T3 with checkin luggage

Can someone enlighten me :

1) should i expect a queue just to enter T3 ?
(Via Schiphol plaza or outdoor car drop off point)
Might arrive at 8.00 mornings because United checkin counters only open 3 hours before scheduled departure time.

I have seen the T1/T2 snake Q just to get in so was wondering if T3 is also affected again.

Thino

Just an update from yesterday: flew to Jfk at 1:30, with family of four, wife and myself skypriority. Luggage drop off took 10 minutes, bag check another 15, customs another 10. Had a solid 2 hours in the not so crowded lounge.
without skypriority it would have taken aprox 2 hours people told us.

FlyingBlonde89

Did you by-pass the main queue and just head for KLM Sky Priority check-in or was the way through clear?