dorps wrote:
dorps wrote:
dorps wrote:
Ive booked a last minute trip arriving on Sunday. Surprisingly managed to get a half decent hotel in the centre for a reasonable rate - Sunday nights have always been a bit cheaper in my experience.
I'm nervous about my departing flight being cancelled, I'm nervous about time to clear passport control when arriving, and I'm nervous about the whole returning process (flight + airport queues). Fingers crossed all will be ok!
Will update you all on queuing times.
Well the whole outbound journey, including both the departing process at the London airport and also the Amsterdam Schipol arrival, was the best ever in all the years I’ve been to Amsterdam!!! You couldn’t make it up lol
Will update in more detail later.
So, it’s not all doom and gloom! I arrived at Schipol today mid morning and had the quickest landing journey ever in the countless trips I’ve made to Amsterdam. There was literally no queue at passport control and I was in and out 15 minutes after landing - honestly can’t ever remember there being no queue. There was also minimal queue in the ‘EU’ lanes (I was in ‘other’ lanes as UK is no longer EU).
Also, for our UK residents, the efficiency at Luton airport was the best I’ve ever experienced at what is quite a busy time (weekend in summer). I arrived 3 hours before my flight but made it through security in around 30 minutes (there have been reports of security queues in London, hence I arrived very early). Had a long leisurely breakfast after and still had 45 mins until the gate was announced. The flight wasn’t 100% full and I had all 3 seats to myself - again can’t remember ever getting a flight to Amsterdam on a weekend and the flight not being full. Not sure what the reason is, I’ve been hearing reports that travel demand from the public is really high following 2 years of COVID restrictions.
I’ll leave it there - I fully appreciate the departure from Schipol is publicised as being the biggest problem and ball ache! Fingers crossed!
Just to finish the travel update, my departure from Schipol was fine as well!
I had a late evening flight, and got to the airport 3h 45 mins before my flight; this turned out to be ridiculously early as i was through security in 45 minutes after entering the airport.
I was searching for the queue as soon as i got off the train and was amazed to be walking through the boarding pass scanning area as normal - recent pictures and videos have shown the queue stretching to outside the airport. When i got upstairs to the security lanes, the queue was slightly longer than normal (150 people?) but it was entirely confined to the area directly outside the security scanners - not downstairs, not outside the airport, nada!
Flight to London left on time and wasn't delayed or, even worse, cancelled.
Thinking about it at the time, it annoyed me that i had lost over 2 hours in amsterdam and spent it at the airport instead, but i wont complain too much because we all know the current situation when we book.
I wonder whether i got lucky or is the situation actually improving? (inclined to think the former because there weren't many security scanners open so staff shortages are probably still there)
There were steady streams of people just skipping the security queue altogether and just walking through a 'fast track' type of service (both disabled and regular passengers). Anyone know how you get access to that?