NEWS FLASH
Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport is further expanding and extending a cap on the number of flights and passengers it can serve each month due to a chronic shortage of staff which it has been experiencing this year. The situation worsened over the past few weeks due to lack of security officers causing passengers to wait in lines for hours. As a result, Schiphol Airport will have to lower the maximum number of locally departing passengers per day by an another 18% (or 9.250 people). This additional reduction will run up until at least October 31. Up until now, the airport capped the daily number of locally departing passengers at 67.500 in September and planned for 69.500 locally departing travellers per day in October. The new maximum will reduce these figures to 54.500 and 57.000 passengers respectively. The airport expects to apply limitations to the daily number of customers at least until the end of the year. KLM, which maintains flights to Belgrade, Zagreb, Split and Dubrovnik, has been hit by the caps. Similarly, Air Serbia has had to limit its number of departing passengers from Amsterdam to Belgrade this summer.
Madness.
ReplyDeleteIf there is severe staff shortage at AMS, are they also short of cleaning staff? That could explain hygiene issues at airport lavatories.
ReplyDeleteThere is mostly shortage of security staff. The check in process at the airport goes normal same as every other airport. So at the check in desks there is sufficient amount of staff. But the biggest problem is shortage of security staff. Ussually when you go to security you wait max 25 minutes. After you checked your luggage at AMS you need to go out the terminal building and wait outside for security. When I flew in July from in AMS I waited 75-80 minutes but there are also many people who waited more. I must say there were also days this July and August were people especially around 3-4 o'clock in the morning waited just 10 minutes but most people who flew this period had to wait long. The toilets and the airport was clean so I guess there is a sufficient amount of cleaning staff. Everything I said is the same in EIN.
DeleteSecurity staff doesn't need 6 months of training. Traffic surge was known and expected more than 6 months ago. October traffic levels are at least 20-30% below summer months so staffing is not an excuse for October reductions. AMS airport CEO resigned last week.
DeleteHe should do it months ago. Big managment fail.
DeleteYes that is true. They even offer people do to an 4 weekly course so they can do this job. But in the Nehterlands there is almost everywhere staff shortage. That's why it's very difficult to find staff. People prefer other jobs that pay the same or more and are much easier to do. The most easy solution is to offer the staff a much higher salary and better workrights, but that is very difficult because AMS wants to be competitive airport. So they don't want to raise the salaries. AMS and KLM/Air France has a lot of transfer pax to North and South America and a big network over the world. But the last 10/15 years they began to struggle, bacause there is a lot of concurention from Turkish and airlines from the middle east. So they will do everything to make the costs as low as possible. The same goes for the baggage workers.At Schiphol there are 6 companies that offer bagage services for the airlines at Schiphol. They all compete, so that they can offer low prices. The problem is that the work facilities are very poor and that more than 50% of the bagage staff has physical problems and some are very serious.Various Dutch news stations made reports of this, but we haven't heard of any improvements.
DeleteBut they keep all taxes and fees in ticket price at max level. Pure profit.
DeleteMy wife who is 80 is flying KLM from Alicante to AMS on 18th Oct to see our grand children and returning on 25th Oct. She has booked disability but if the queues are hours long what does she do? Can she go to the head of the queue is there a separate queue are there signs. What happens if she misses her flight she cannot wait around at the airport for another flight. If she cancels will she get a refund?
ReplyDeleteOn Sunday Sept 18 I flew out of Schiphol. The lines and crowds were awful. I was wheeled around on an airport wheelchair and was given exceptional service and expediting by airport staff. Even so, I almost missed my flight due to understaffing and delays at security. Once boarded on our flight, we were delayed leaving because of numerous passengers still delayed in the security lines. We finally were about to depart 1-1/2 hours later. The airport staff are exceptional but the holdup at security is crippling.
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