johan rebel

Benschop is out of his depth and out of his mind, but these particular words of wisdom I learned to take to heart decades ago. Whatever the time of year, I travel with a little as I can possibly manage. I very rarely check a bag, and although I bring a small backpack in addition to my regular gearslinger™ on a rather more than half my flights, the two together are smaller than the rollaboards and steamer trunks many other pax drag along.

When flying, less is more, at least where luggage is concerned.

Johan

johan rebel

Why not do it the American way and just give the kids 12 weeks off? They will have forgotten half of what they learned by the time they are back in class, but all those family vacations can be spread out over many months.

Johan

johan rebel

Like the people who want to visit the Gemeentebalie Schiphol, or the Privium ClubLounge to get their irises scanned, or to visit any of the numerous airline and travel agent ticket offices, or have a room booked at the Yotel/ Mercure because they have a very early flight the next morning, or . . . .

Johan

Fabo.sk

Hell I used to pop in the AH on my way home on occasion when commuting to Bijlmer. I gotta change trains somewhere, why not Schiphol? Saved me a shopping trip after arrival.

johan rebel

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't that Schiphol AH the most expensive one in the entire country?

Johan

Fabo.sk

I've never thought to compare prices. Looking at the kassabonen in my app, most all seems normal price, except for a 0.5l bottle of spa rood, which cost me a nice round 2 euros with statiegeld. Other items include beer, milk, bread, sandwiches, ready meals, that kind of stuff, all normal pricing.

SkyteamEP

Took me 35 minutes from the Uber drop off to the Schengen lounge with SkyPriority this morning. Was dropped off at 6:38am, and didn't had any checked luggage. Went to the SkyPriority check-in in departure 2 and went up to the priority security line from there.

irishguy28

They started this same scheme at Dublin airport this morning. They closed off the departures road and erected marquees outside (the "gazebo terminal" ) where passengers (with some exceptions) will be told to wait until 2.5/3.5 hours before departure.

https://www.newstalk.com/news/dublin...g-area-1351203

I'll be passing through Schiphol this morning/afternoon so curious to see how they actually manage the throngs that are trying to access the terminal....

terrier

Flying without SP to a destination with limited alternative routings, for a week full of business meetings it would be bad to miss/be late to. I don't *need* to arrive that early - but I do want to maximize my chance of arriving Sunday instead of Monday (or later) so...

(Also, I don't live in Amsterdam but I do live in Holland so, not a tourist - and what else am I going to do on Sunday morning, really. )

b12e

Is there any way we can pin this message somewhere? It'll save a lot "hi I'm flying on airline XYZ but you are AMS experts so what time should I be there?" posts, which frankly, I've seen a few of those already pop up and this is supposed to be "quiet season" in between the meivakantie and zomervakantie for the Dutchies.

Your summary is really spot-on 😊.

OttoMH

It was enforced today at the escalator to Departures 1&2 (very respectfully and friendly, I must say!)

Schiphol Plaza not particularly busy.

Privium lane open at Departures 2. Roped off but staff open it once you pass the machine. DEDICATED lane upstairs. Even ahead of business class. Superb experience. If it wasn’t for a card issue, which meant I had to go to the lounge and back, it would’ve been <5 min from train to X-ray machine - super!

Priority lane open also open. Queue up the stairs. Maybe 70-100 people. 1 dedicated lane.

A colleague also travelled today, non status, baggage to check. Took 1.5hrs. So moving but slow.

Fabo.sk

I've created a wiki, please everyone feel free to improve upon it, restructure as needed etc.

Good to hear Privium is having a dedicated lane. Even better value proposition.

I am however worried to hear about this card issue. I had the same recently. Hope it's not some system issue and won't happen again.

Xandrios

Before this mess they would actively remove people from the Plaza area, pax were not allowed to be there at all. Though maybe that has now changed in light of these additional restrictions on terminal access...

To some extend probably yes. But in the end, over the course of the day the same number of pax have to go through the security checkpoint. If there is a peak in departures, then the peak at security will now be 4 hours before that time - while that previously may have been 5-6 hours. I can also imagine this new rule to worsen the problem because now the majority of pax will plan to be there exactly 4hrs before departure, while previously it was more spread out. So that means that if there is a peak in departures (Of which there are a few during the day), that exact same peak will show at the security checkpoint exactly 4hrs prior to departure.

I think that if they REALLY want to improve things they should probably specify a specific (e.g. 30 min) window to arrive at the airport, which may be different per flight/departure time. It would allow them to fully smooth out the pax at security and have a very constant stream of pax, at exactly the same number of pax per hour. Now, pax won't like that - and it may mean that some pax will be asked to arrive 4hr before departure, while others should arrive 2hr before departure. But strictly speaking from an efficiency standpoint, where the goal is to eliminate the wave, that's probably a way it could be done.

To be honest, most of all of this is because of people being early just because they fear missing their flight. If Schiphol would simply allow pax registering their arrival at the airport (via the app perhaps?) and offer a rebooking/compensation guarantee for pax arriving at the time Schiphol wants them to be there - I'm pretty sure noone is inclined to be too early any more.

irishguy28

Arrived by train at 11:30. There were 2 people at the bottom of the walkways up to Deparures 1checking boarding passes/tickets, but there was only about 10 people ahead of me and got through in a matter of seconds.
The queue for Priority security ended half way down the stairs up from the SkyPriority check in area. The escalator was not operational and was roped off. It took me a good half hour to get to the top of the line for security. While I was waiting in line past the barcode scanning gate, though, there was no queue down the stairs anymore. They were decanting people from the Priority line to the next security area along, so some people would have got through sooner.

In each "avenue" that was open, with a security check to left and right, only one was in operation, so throughput was slower than normal. A crew shift change occurred shortly after noon, which also slowed my line for a couple of minutes. But it moved pretty well; most people I guess knew what to expect so it wasn't bad at all.

The Privium line never had more than about 5 people waiting, and the absolute max any Privium card holder would have had to wait to get to the security check was 5-7 minutes. Some confused people seeing the line for Priority attempted to get into the Privium line but the guy policing the queue was well on top of it.

The Schengen lounge is not as busy as I was expecting. A few vacant seats, but I have often seen it busier.

The earlier flight I was initially hoping to change my ticket onto after clearing security (as mentioned in previous posts) is showing a long delay. I hope my flight won't similarly be late!

Fijn weekend allemaal!

Fabo.sk

One of the issues here is that a glut of people would arrive early morning, 7-8, that would include people with flights at any time between 9 and 3. Limiting entry to 4 hours in advance of flight will at least restrict those with afternoon flights from entering in the morning. I don't know if it will make much of a difference.