That's a pretty accurate view.
I was flying out of AMS on Sunday morning at 11:15. Assuming the worst I arrived unusually early for me at 09:15 in Schiphol. Normal schedule is 45min before departure.
At that point in time the airport was busy, but not insane. KLM was busy and chaotic, but more because of inexperienced people crowding the entrance to the check-in area instead of a mass of people. A queue larger than normal but in no way reaching the outside of the building or anything. You could see the empty tents set up outside for that situation though. Even in Y with no Status at all that should have been navigatable in less than an hour.

Other airlines had much less issues. Lufthansa check-in was basically empty, no waiting.

Security had priority queues open. Regular fast lane as well as Privium. Total time for me from checkin to lounge was around 15min.
For status-less pax this would look different as they had three belts open for priority access and three belts for everyone else if I counted correctly. That meant there were much more people waiting in the regular queue.

But it seems like Sunday was easy enough for Schiphol to not sink into chaos. The weather in the rest of Europe still led to tons of cancellation but at least these time they were weather related.

Can they really be this dumb? Yes, they sure can!
 

Around 1.30 p.m. this afternoon:

One of the moving walkways from the Plaza up to Departures 2 had been blocked, a staff member at the other one was checking everybody to make sure they adhered to the new 4-hour rule. There was a long line of pax patiently waiting for their turn. But . . . the stairs and elevator were not policed at all, so the brightest flying sparks (a small minority) just walked right past the long queue and proceeded straight up the stairs to departures.

:confused: :confused: :confused:

https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...70b28a5f72.jpg

https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...4ad47c8e37.jpg

Johan

So much for Sky Priority
 

I checked the Sky Priority access at the back of the KLM check-in area, which has a separate Privium gate allowing access from the outside. I was there for about a minute. First a guy showed up who tried to open the Privium gate with his boarding card. That didn't really work. While he was trying to figure it out, another pax pitched up who opened the Tensa barrier, closed it behind him, and headed straight up the stairs. He was followed by the first pax, who thought about closing the Tensa again, but decided to leave it open. Within seconds a dozen more pax just walked right in, easily outnumbering the few coming from the KLM check-in desks.

https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...6e6b27d7fe.jpg

https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...6bad590c79.jpg

https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...8cb97d86f5.jpg

https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...a965c23fda.jpg

https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...e40d566b12.jpg

https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...b897f609e5.jpg

https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...8de0ade182.jpg
Apologies for the poor picture quality.

Johan

Access to security next to door F, at 1.40 p.m. today, Tuesday.

https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...3f558f8071.jpg
A very quiet day, by current Schiphol standards.

Welcome to the Privium Express Lounge!
 

https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...60d0728d70.jpg
Recommending ClubLounge West is not really the brightest of ideas, given that pax will have to go through immigrations twice.As if the queues aren't long enough already. And please ask which staff member exactly for assistance?

Johan

When checking in on Sunday at the Lufthansa booth I was specifically told by the agent there to use the priority access. I assumed she meant that one, so I just decided to walk in through the doors with the little One-Way signs. After all, just doing as instructed.

Was fine, not much waiting...

Hi all, I am booked on an early morning flight to USA in July on UA. I’m flying in J. How early should I be AMS? Assuming I need to get my BP and have my Covid testing results checked at the counter prior to clear the security. Sorry if this is not related to KLM. Thanks in advance.

SkyPriority was redirected (alternatively: overflowed) to Departures 1 a couple of Mondays ago, too, during one of the epic meltdowns.

I presume all those passengers had priority boarding passes, or will the gates upstair open for non-priority boarding passes?

(tried it in the past once with a colleague who did not have sky priority and the gate scanners rejected him but recently someone said here that they will open for anyone)

Nobody had a voice in their head: "saying this might be a bad idea..."

AFAIK, they will open for anyone, except for the privium gates of course. Skyteam Elite (not +) passengers are allowed to use the priority security lane there, but their boarding passes won't have SP on them. Also, non-SP pax that accompany a SP passanger are often allowed in, as an unpublished beneift. Which makes sensel, as KL does not automatically extend SP to fellow passengers on the same PNR, such as DL does.

They should either post someone at that gate downstairs, or make it much harder to pass through without a privium pass. Full height automated door for example.

Keep in mind that the target group for this recommendation are Privium pass holders. Passing through immigrations won't take up much, if any, time for Privium members. I've never been in any sort of line at the Schengen wall Privium gate. It adds at most a minute to the walk each way.

Happened this morning, but Departures 2 and SkyPriority were not full, not sure why they were telling us to go to Departures 1 (upstairs, i.e. Straight to a scanner in dep 1 without much of a wait)

Wheelchair priority?
 

My 86-year old mother-in-law needs a wheelchair. Is that considered priority?

Last week, when I saw the sign "do not come earlier than 4 hours" just in front of the automatic stairs (but at the moment nobody was checking), that was exactly my thought: what if i walk up the stairs? Which in any case I do sometimes when there is too much crowd at the stairs...