Amsterdam Schiphol Airport

Not Verified | The KLM airline crew were the nicest, most accommodating flight team I’ve ever encountered. I was very pleased until I stepped out of the hanger and had to deal with the airport personnel stationed at the terminal/gate stand. I asked a very simple question concerning gate number. I did so because my boarding ticket showed no gate number, and I was closer to the worker at the stand than to the information board. The female who addressed me was bossy and rude. Her attitude was obnoxious, contemptuous, and dismissive. Still, my response to this ill-mannered airport clerk (as she repeated a second directive in an equally unacceptable tone) was a mere “I heard you but I do not like your attitude so I’ll go.” She started rephrasing herself, but I simply gave her a bland, “Thank you.” and left without the info I’d sought. Her mistreatment put a very sour taste in my mouth, but when I read so many other reviews which included patron complaints about rude Schiphol airline personnel, I decided not to take that woman’s ugly malfeasance personally. I hope the airport or KLM learn from all the negative feedback and act to put into place employee screening and hiring practices that are more effective and productive. I also cannot understand why one needs to show one’s boarding pass simply to purchase a bottle of water from the FINEFOOD market.

Not Verified | Passport control, rude staff with a negative profiling approach especially if you have a British passport! The member of staff that dealt with me as I was clearing through had no idea of the rules for travel, lied about the documentation I needed to transit through the airport onwards to Sweden, took delight that he was about to try and stop me continuing my trip and on the whole was the worst experience I have had in a while.

Not Verified | Really not many options, especially in covid times. No restaurants besides a food court of some kind if you have a longer transit. Free wifi is horrible, streaming a movie is impossible. But also regular sites are loading extremely slow. Not the best airport to choose if you have transit.

Not Verified | I can honestly say that Schiphol airport is by far the worst airport I have ever been to. It's super long, dirty, half dug up, parts of the ceiling are missing, but instead of repairing what is already built, they decided to start making the airport even bigger. The staff there is the rudest staff I have ever met. When I was going through the security check up, there was a staff member who told me that me and my mom could go together. So we went through, took the boxes in which you're supposed to put your items in, when a lady working few meters away from the guy looked at me with the worst look I've ever gotten and asked me "how dare I walk there with my mom when we're supposed to maintain a 2 meter distance". I told her that her friend told me I could go through and that me and my mom are family, so the 2 meters are not our case. She started hysterically screaming at me and threatened to call security. Than she told me to back up and left me standing there like an idiot, until all the people behind me went through. Till this day I still have no idea what happened and what I did wrong. This completely ruined my whole experience which was already bad because of the condition of the airport. Please Americans, if you're traveling to Europe choose a different airport, Paris CDG or Heathrow, they are both 100% better. Friendly staff, synoptic gates and overall a better quality. I really hope I won't have to travel through this airport ever again!

✅ Trip Verified | There was an intimidating atmosphere that I didn't like. The kind of menace you find usually in American airports. The very rude security & 'douane' staff who engage in blatant and obvious profiling of passengers. Their lies and derogatory manner in which they treat passengers. A horrible experience. The one terminal design is predicated on it's ease of use. But what it is in reality is that there are very long walks to your gate and if you have a tight connection you can easily miss your flights. It's difficult to navigate and the 'central foyer' if you're on each side is some distance. Not well thought out for 2021. Add to the fact there is nothing much to do here if you have a long layer over. Transiting more than 90min and you'll be very bored and frustrated. Most shops were closed apart from some very expensive retail shops. This is one nasty and horrible airport.

✅ Trip Verified | The worst airport experience in many years! Arrived on time at 07:00 am from a 9 hours flight, with a 7 hours layover for my next flight. At the security check my hand luggage was sorted for further manual check, together with about 50% of hand bags of other passengers in the same line. Please note that all other lines had not more than 10-20% of bags selected. It was totally clear that something was wrong with the calibration of that scanner! This caused me a frustrating 30 minutes waiting for my bag to be cleared, while in urgent need for a toilet. Of course nothing wrong was found with my luggage and all others in the same line. Passed this check, I went to the transit/departures hall. Here I found a panel with a large airport map, showing all services available. Among those I noticed the presence of a smoking space at departures corridor D, and there I went hoping to have a cigarette. After walking the whole corridor D without finding the place, I asked for information to a person in some kind of uniform (no idea from which organization. Whatever was written on his badge and dress was in Dutch). The man told me that all smoking areas were closed due to Covid measures. I pointed out that A) smoking rooms have a much better and faster air aspiration than any other place and are then intrinsically safer, and B) that the inaccurate information displayed on the panel creates an expectation that is then not fulfilled and this is frustrating. The man laughed at me! Seriously! Such a rude behavior is totally unacceptable. Indeed I did not want to discuss further with a person in a uniform, fearing consequences. I instead filed a complaint to the Airport website. After this I went to seek for a restaurant, only to discover that there are no restaurants open at Schiphol, only fast food places and cafes, selling packaged sandwiches and similar. No way one can have something as simple as a soup or a scrambled egg, a steak or a pasta. Unbelievable! You can intoxicate yourself with a hamburger and fries, but you can't get an omelette or a piece of cheese with some proper bread. Crazy. Of course a number of "restaurants" are displayed on the same panel, but they include McDonalds and such places that cannot be defined as proper restaurants. Other places were closed "due to Covid". Why that? Surely not because of lack of potential customers (the airport was crowded as usual) and not because of safety, if bars, cafes and fast food places are open! Add that I found at least two moving walkways and one escalator that were not working and you have the picture of an airport that, though clean and "good looking", is not functional and needs serious retraining of its personnel.

✅ Trip Verified | Schiphol is a terrible airport that values cost savings at the expense of passengers. COVID may have decreased passengers but Schiphol has further decreased security check points. The queues to pass security check takes 90 minutes. If not for good Samaritans, we would have missed our flight. Just because the airline says arrive 2 hours before - don’t. Get to Schiphol 4 hours before to be on the safe side. 90% of security scanners remain unused as the airport is severely understaffed. I would give the airport a zero if possible - an airport should facilitate flights, not create extra hurdles and obstacles for passengers.

✅ Trip Verified | Amsterdam Schiphol airport is huge and beautiful but the staff members absolutely ruined my trip. When I got lost and tried to get information each person that I talked to were too busy on their phones to help someone. I understand it wasn’t the job of some of them, but somehow I expected more compassion for someone that was literally in tears and had walked for hours trying to find her way. When I went to their information station (all digital) their wasn’t enough to go by and they tell you to ring if you need to talk to someone. I rang 3 times and no one picked up. So I tried going to the disabled help center, the woman who attended me was on her phone talking (so maybe I was just an inconvenience to her, she basically called me dumb) but if someone that works with special needs treated me so rudely how do they treat the ones that can’t complain? I was shocked that someone like that had contact with people who need help and all she wanted to do was be on her phone. All I wanted to do was get out of there as fast as possible. So when I was able to call a different help line service and they finally picked up, it wasn’t long before I was insulted again and that was when I lost my nerve and asked him if there was anyone useful there and it was only then (when I was ringing on the phone) that he decided to give me information. I was never so humiliated in my life. I truly ask: is there any management in that place? Because no one was doing their jobs which isn’t much considering the pandemic (people aren’t travelling as much). So I can only imagine how much worse the treatment could get if they were busy at all. The only people who tried to help me were immigration workers (and that wasn’t their jobs) but the people who work for the actual airport, their treatment was unacceptable. I was laughed at and insulted countless times. So if you have plans of flying thru there but get lost easily I suggest you go somewhere else. I had never gotten lost before in my life and I usually find my way very fast. But I’m only young and knew that that’s something normal that almost everyone goes thru, (and I probably would at some point) unfortunately that happened and I was surrounded not only by rudeness, but also by laziness and probably the worst people I could be around at that point. So maybe I was naive, because I expected that help workers where useful, or at least a bit more kind. But I think it was to wild of an idea for them to work before the person lost their patience. But that was the only thing that worked! Do I really need to be enraged to get help? For disclaimer I probably talked to 20 different workers and I can count on my fingers the ones that tried to help, non of them did help me but at least they tried, which is more than I can say for the airport help centres!

✅ Trip Verified | Departing on a Sunday morning for the first time since March when the Covid-19 pandemic broke loose. Never have I experienced this airport with relatively so few passengers. Security was a breeze as I was the only passenger at that moment. Through in less than a minute. Boarding via stairs, no problem. The airport is very clean, signage is excellent, but it is a huge airport. Due to the pandemic some sections are closed which limits the walking distances, which is thoughtful and nice. Shops and restaurants operate as normal. Facemasks are worn everywhere. All in all a somewhat strange, but very pleasant experience.

✅ Trip Verified | The airport is very clean and modern looking. The hotel and food in the terminal is very convenient, especially given the pandemic. The only problem it is a bit hard to estimate the time required to walk from the food shops and hotel to the gate. The different letters associated with the gates can be confusing, so you may end up thinking the gate is much closer to where you are.