Amsterdam Schiphol Airport

✅ Trip Verified | I travel a reasonable amount and have to say Schiphol airport is one of the worst I have experienced in the last few years. I was travelling by myself with carry-on only luggage with BA. Firstly we taxied for 25 minutes. Not waiting for a stand but going all the way around the airport to D gates. The next challenge was trying to find your way out of the airport. No 'Exit' or 'Way out' or 'Passports' signs, just 'Arrivals Hall'. It was a very long walk and you were forced to pass through the shopping area. Three toilets I stopped at on the way had 1 or 2 urinals only and queues of people waiting. I eventually found the narrow entrance to the passport area where there was a large crowd of people being asked to wait by an official. EU passport holders were let through to the queue downstairs which was substantial, particularly for non-EU travellers. There were only 4 or 5 e-passport gates which seemed to operate much slower than the ones we have in the UK. Further walking to find my way out to a taxi rank. Then again a significant queue to actually get out of the buidling through a slow 'double-revolving door'. So landing to taxi rank took over an hour. I can imagine this would be significantly longer if you were travelling with bags, children or was a slow walker. On the reverse trip we must have been dropped off at the wrong part of the airport as it was a very long walk to the D gate area. Security was reasonable with new machines and took about 15 minutes. The main problem was the extremely slow e-passport gates. Maybe only about 10 machines each with a long queue of frustrated travellers behind. The machines were incredibly slow and I began to worry that I would miss my flight. The walk from passport control to gate D26 was again very long indeed. I had to run to catch my flight and wished I’d measured the distance. A few travellators helped but would take 20 minutes plus at a slow pace.

✅ Trip Verified | This airport could be really nice and comfortable - there is a lot of shops and food areas, not as expensive as some other European airports too. All information is also quite clear and signs very helpful. But when it comes to "human factor" it's just a nightmare, security check is extremely slow. I think I have never seen so many staff at security check and yet, it took some 40 minutes for 20 people which were in front of me to pass it. Staff seem bored and slow, if you mention that your gate is closing it's not bothering them at all. I met only one nice lady who helped me a bit to advance, but the rest of colleagues were as in kind of slow motion movie. Usually 1 hour 30 min before the flight is more than enough in any European airport, for internal (no passport control) flight, in this case I nearly missed my flight. klm flight attendants were very kind to wait for passengers stuck at security and apparently it's very common and well known problem. Of course it's important to keep a good level of security, and I think we are all thankful for that, but somehow other airports manage to organise everything much much more effectively. Just got an impression that staff is just unmotivated and bored. So your stress is almost kind of amusing for them.

Not Verified | Worst airport. From checking in, took over an hour and fifteen minutes to: drop bags (long queue), scan boarding pass to get to security (long queue), security (longest queue I have ever encountered at an airport in all my travelling days)! Not worthy of international airport status. Poor poor poor.

✅ Trip Verified | Schiphol airport is overloaded and unable to accommodate the customer load especially if you are passing through customs or passport check. Which even if you are part of the EU and traveling within the EU is still a nightmare. Even if you are first-class or apart of the EU you will still get stuck in this roadblock. This shocked me. Checked in 2 hours before our flight. Got a quick bite which I will admit the airport is pretty accommodating when in comes to food and shopping. Then we went to go find security check and that is when the nightmare began. We spent the 1st half-hour at a roadblock which entirely prevents from moving forward, and would only let limited groups make a mad dash through. Everyone runs up thinking they are out of the woods only to be met immediately by another queue for security check. This queue took another 30 minutes through an archaic snaking line system which finally led to our security check. At this point you think you are home free but no. Another 30 minutes in another archaic snaking line system where you aren't even sure is gong to your customs zone. This my EU friends (I'm American) you are still not saved because all passengers are queued and it isn't clarified which queue is the one you should belong to. Even if you ask them if there is priority boarding, 1st class, or EU passport, and I heard a lot of people asked this, you are shutdown until you're near enough to the customs check to find out which line you really need to be in. Customs check was fine but their agents have zero sense of urgency as they held a conversation with their coworkers or even other passengers. At this point, our 2 hours were up and we had 10 minutes to get to our terminal. We ran to our terminal which I feared correctly was farther away than I had hoped. We got stopped again for a sniffer dog at which I asked if we were close to our gate H. Not that I expect much in the way of customer service anywhere really I was told to "Just look around". It was another few minutes and guess what we made it! We boarded at the tail end of the crowd only to find out our flight was delayed for other passengers who were also stuck in their security queues. 30 minutes later we finally took off. At least 9 passengers missed their flight according to the flight staff. So lesson learned if you go to Schiphol airport plan on more than 2 hours even if you are connecting flights.

✅ Trip Verified | I travel a lot and this is the worst airport I know. Permanently under construction, overcrowded, dirty and simply not fit for purpose. I have never before encountered crowd control measures where exits are sealed because of overcrowding in passport control, resulting in a press of hundreds of people around the exit, with no information and no discernible system. We were eventually told to go from Arrivals 1 to 3 - a very long walk and not helpful when our driver was in hall 1. Half an hour wasted and a lot of frustration. Hopeless.

✅ Trip Verified | This place has everything. I spent 7 hours there waiting for a family member to arrive: I had arrived too early given needing to book another flight due the bankruptcy of an airline, my family member was delayed 4 hours. It was time to experience this airport for everything it had (after security). I started by lying down on their seats in the more quiet and darker areas. They offer a carry-on locker service for 8 euros. Wi-Fi of unprecedented quality. It let me chat online and do my language lessons. I was getting hungry so I decided to walk around.I eventually decided to stop at the Jamie Oliver restaurant; a bit pricey, but excellent Aubergine (eggplant with cheese) and salad. Then a box of waffles filled with honey. They had a small preview of the Rijks museum which featured beautiful artwork. Nearby was an array of little scientific expositions which were delightful. An excellent face to the Netherlands!

✅ Trip Verified | Airport is good but heavily loaded. It is pretty hard to stay on time on short connections especially if border control is involved. Worth to avoid this airport in case connection time is less then 1.5 hours (without border control) or 2 hours (in case border control is needed). Price wise, Amsterdam airport is pretty expensive, even if you just want to get a cup of coffee.

✅ Trip Verified | No seats and rats in the business lounge!! I travel via Amsterdam frequently and am hugely disappointed by the constantly over subscribed business lounge. This is the fourth time I have been unable to find seating, I did however see a rat making use of the business lounge, I wasn't upset as he didn't have a seat either. KLM/Amsterdam airport should of made better provisions when redesigning the business lounge. This service falls massively short compared to other leading airlines which I am not allowed to name on here.

✅ Trip Verified | This was my departure from Amsterdam as part of my euro tour. Having experienced good airports all this while, the expectations was that Schipol wouldn't dissapoint but to my surprise this is the worst airport that I have come across in terms of infrastructure. There seems to be shortage of staff starting from counters till check out. I reached the airport close to 2.5 hrs before and the horror started when I started check-in. 5 counters for 2 busy Emirates flights with two reserved for platinum and business class. Apparently online check-in had no advantages as the queue of passengers who weren't checked in had a faster check in at the counters. Poor management of boarding counters and that was the start of the worst experience next heading to the security screening which is not equipped to handle passengers of this magnitude and run in an age old snake pattern queueing. My flight was at 11.40 am and they had to inspect a shaving foam bottle which resulted in a further delay. This ensured I finished security at 11 am. Next stop at immigration control where the pace was slow and that ensured I cleared that at 11.33 am. Post that there was a frantic attempt to find the gates and after a long walk finally reached the gate and boarded at 11.40. Moment we boarded we realised that the flight had a delayed time for take off by 30 mins. This is not the fault of the airline as some passengers were delayed because of the long times at different queues in the airport. I had heard about the magnitude of Schipol airport but can comfortably say that the outdated infrastructure, shortage of staff, mismanagement of time etc ensures that this airport cannot handle nor provide the world class service like other airports like Dubai, London etc..

✅ Trip Verified | No idea what is wrong with this airport - I was out of immigration within minutes as I was one of the first ones to get off the plane. However, it took more than 30 minutes before the suitcases went on the carousel. There seems to be a constant shortage of staff. There is always a queue or wait, yet there aren’t enough seats around. I wouldn’t recommend this airport but there isn’t a choice when you have to travel to the Netherlands.