After a few weeks of calm, Schiphol passengers queued for hours yet again — and many missed their flights.
The Netherlands’ national airport blames staff shortages for yet another disastrous weekend of long queues and unhappy travellers.
Already at the beginning of the month, Schiphol airport was overwhelmed by incoming travellers and had to cancel entire flights to (unsuccessfully) avoid overcrowding.
Social media disaster
Several people on social media dubbed Schiphol as “the worst airport ever” — with some waiting as long as six hours and 30 minutes in security.
“It is extremely annoying for travellers. We are doing everything we can to avoid long lines,” said a Schiphol spokesperson to the NOS.
One traveller complained that their flight was cancelled an hour before departure, while another wrote that they waited five hours in passport control. Then they had to wait in another line because they missed their KLM flight. 🙄
Many travellers stood in line for hours without food, drink, or access to the toilets.
Busy until summer
The Schiphol spokesperson emphasises that most people made it to their flights, despite excessive waiting. However, they cannot say whether the waiting lines will be as long tomorrow.
The KLM airline warns travellers on its website that there are longer waiting times and possible disruptions to flights — but this was not enough to warn passengers.
Schiphol expects the airport to be very busy every day until the summer holidays. Who knows what it will be like after that. 🤷🏻
Have you been to Schiphol lately? Did you experience any long lines or flight disruptions? Tell us in the comments!
We showed up at 5:30 for a 9:50 flight as we were warned about this. The ticket counter for our flight to LAX did not open up until 6 AM and the line was already pretty long when we got there 4 1/2 hrs before our flight.
After check in we stood in the security line for close to an hour and a half but we made it through with more than an hour to spare.
Several passengers did not make it and their luggage needed to be removed so we had almost an hour delay at the gate.
Lot of tempers flaring as people tried to jump the security lines.
Only advice I can give you is to show up wayyyyyyyyyyyyyy early and be patient. It’s chaos
I was there on Monday morning, arrived 4 hours before my flight, and luckily was able to make it to my flight, as I already had my boarding card, so I didn’t have to use time checking in. But the lines were incredibly long and went back and forth , and it was very confusing. I didn’t know what was going on, what were the lines for, where were they going…it took me a while to realize that everyone needed to get in the line. It took about 3 hours to pass through security, and my flight was delayed 3 hours. We had to sit in the plane waiting for passengers, unloading luggage from the ones that didn’t make it, and wait for another slot to take off. Just glad we were able to leave, i didn’t realize others were in a worse predicament with their flights being cancelled.
I traveled to POS with KLM on the 29th April, my flight was 9.40am, I waited almost one hour only in the security line, then another long walk to the gate. It was really frustrating. I returned on the 11th May at 8.10to connect to a Frankfurt flight at 9.40. It was another hustle as I knew that if I waited in the line I would surely miss my flight, I then walked right up to the top of the line and showed my boarding pass to an employee, he read it looked at his watch and allowed me to enter passport control, I was really happy to get my flight on time. Thanks to the personal for doing a good service.
Today we nearly missed a connecting flight because of looong waiting time for security.
Only a few booths open.
Well, we heard the news so we were 4 hours earlier and yet still missed our flight (12:05). Stood there for almost 4 hours in the queue and had to run to the gate but still missed. What a holiday!
Waited hours in line. Got to security and 4-5, 8-9, 12-13 were closed. Super frustrating to see. Will avoid using this airport from now on.
My daughter missed her flight and therefore connecting flight, due to long security queues. Is there a way to claim compensation from the airport?