Just got in. Posting this to let all know that the lines for entrance into the gate areas are nearly an hour long at AMS. This is a second screening after you have passed through the first and formerly just walked over to the gate. Don't hang around the KLM Lounge like we did figuring that we had plenty of time. And then, there was another intensive check of passports and a Q&A session at the boarding gate.
NW 61 AMS-JFK left a few minutes late because of all the to-do, but easily made up the time enroute. It was booked full, but the WBC cabin was no more than 50% when the doors closed. Many attributed it to cancellations from fear of flying to the US, but others thought that a lot of passengers were left standing in the crazy line outside of the second screening station. I do not know how full the back of the plane was.
The food was standard issue NW-KL (always take the Indonesian chicken coming out of AMS), but the movies started unnanounced and
kept to no schedule, so they were basically unwatchable.
Coming into the US, we passed over Logan, which appeared to be dead. There were planes at every gate and we saw nothing moving on the runways and taxiways.
At JFK, we were the only plane moving (except for EL Al being towed to its wayout parking place).
We were of course the only arrival and cruised thru Immigration although any foreign passport holder was getting a pretty good third degree. There was also a rundown on those whe did not have a NY address. They wanted to know why they were coming to NY, what was their occupation, where were they going to stay, etc.
The priority tags did nothing for us this time and we were among the last out of the baggage claim. We coasted through customs with a few extra questions, but every opening station was being used with some people waiting in line to have their bags searched. We really must have looked like the New Yorkers we are, happy as could be to get home after being stuck in Amsterdam for nearly five extra days.

A couple questions:

did you have to pay for those five extra days in Amsterdam or did the airlines cover that?

when I've flown C class through AMS, they've had at-the-gate separate biz class and coach class security screening lines. Was that still the case?

Would have loved it if the airline paid the E305 per night at the Renaissance. But they had more than a couple of thousand stranded passengers in AMS and were springing for nothing because they did not consider this to be anything that was their fault. Snow, hurricane, terrorism, all the same to them. Not their fault. As a matter of fact, on Thursday, they were refusing to board connecting passengers in LYS who did not have a confirmed hotel reservation in hand. They were not going to pay for anybody and since the hotels were booked 100%, they were not going to load up Schiphol with people sleeping on the floor. I don't really blame them, because I did not expect any compensation from the airline although I would have liked a "stranded traveler" rate from the hotel, which would not hear of such.
There was a separate C class line for screening at the gate, but that area was the least of the problems. I will repeat, there was an extra set of X-Ray machines to go thru before being allowed on the E Concourse and that was the cause of the trouble.

[This message has been edited by monitor (edited 09-17-2001).]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by monitor:
[B]Would have loved it if the airline paid the E305 per night at the Renaissance. But they had more than a couple of thousand stranded passengers in AMS and were springing for nothing because they did not consider this to be anything that was their fault. Snow, hurricane, terrorism, all the same to them. Not their fault.

Why, then, was "the immediate financial damage incurred by KLM in the wake of the attacks [...] primarily caused by the loss of revenue ensuing from the cancellation of more than 100 flights to the United States, Canada and the Middle East, in combination with extra costs ensuing from the accommodation of stranded passengers"?

johan