I went on a trip, but before I got on the plane... (my opinion on the situation at Schiphol).

Translated from Dutch. View the original post here

Hooray, I'm back home!
And yes, that means our trip to Iceland has continued.
It was still exciting, due to the illness and death of my father-in-law, and would Schiphol cancel our flight or not?

It was and is a mess at Schiphol.
Partly due to the covid pandemic, in which there was much less flying, many staff who worked in security and baggage handling have left.
Another job, which paid more, and may be less physically heavy, and I mean the latter especially for the baggage handlers.

You might think it's a typical Dutch problem: money.
Yet that is not the case, all over the world you hear about problems at the airports.
Fortunately, our flight was not cancelled, so we left for Schiphol on August 6, where we arrived almost four hours before departure.
We were able to store the luggage quickly, you drop it into a kind of cage, you get a confirmation, and you can go to security. 

Normally, that means: up the escalator, and then to the safety department. 
Now that meant: to the end of the departure hall, where a row of people already formed. That row led us out, to the control tower, where we made a turn and back into the departure hall, where we were trained a flight of stairs, and from there into a zigzag track, up to security.

Stroopwafels were handed out right at the beginning of the row, tasty, and typically Dutch.
We decided to save them, for later, or maybe for Iceland.
In the line, which continued slowly but surely, the atmosphere was left. Everyone knew we had to wait, and well. most of them were well on time, so we got there. We were covered, it wasn't extremely hot, we had a little music from fellow travelers, there was some chatter.
Of course, you always have 1 or 2 who had to ask security if they couldn't go faster.
These people could count on a lot of attention from other waiting people, but not annoying.
Just before we entered the departure hall again, we got syrup waffles again, we also kept these.
In the tent, where the queue ran through, there were a number of security guards who were keeping an eye on things.

After almost two hours, we arrived at the security guards, who did their utmost to keep everyone walking as quickly as possible. You had plenty of time to empty your pockets and remove metal objects, so that should go smoothly. It did that too. After about ten minutes, we were through security: on to passport control!

You can do passport control yourself, you have your passport scanned, a camera checks if it's you, and you can continue. However, this was poorly marked at Schiphol, which meant that there was a long queue.
I knew this from last time, and so we were able to get on super fast, because no one had come up with the same idea.

And then the wait started, because. we appeared to have received an email from Icelandair: our plane was delayed, almost two hours.
There was no message from Schiphol: not via the intercom, not via the information boards.
And so it happened that many passengers were crammed up in the departure hall at the gate (nice covid technically responsible, but those are not airports anyway, of course).

After almost two hours, we received information at the gate, again via Icelandair: there had been a technical problem before leaving in Iceland, that had caused the delay. We were able to check-in.
And that's when our adventure began.

More about our adventure later, but summarized my opinion about Schiphol:
They do what they can, hand out syrup waffles, have a spacious canopy for the row, inside that canopy is well ventilated.
But it's crazy that until shortly before your flight, you're in uncertainty about whether or not to cancel.
The security guards work their soles away from under their shoes, and the baggage people also do this.
The provision of information leaves much to be desired! That is a strong point of attention.
And further: do you pay people a decent salary, give them decent employment conditions, that's what they deserve!
And not only now, but certainly also in the future!

More about our vacation soon!

#opinion   #schiphol   #vacation   #await