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Comment by Aeolun | Hacker News Reader

I was so surprised going through security in Schiphol Airport recently. I swear there were 3000 people in line, but they have like 30 security checkpoints, and everyone goes in the same line (maybe one per terminal?), so we were through in 15 minutes.

It was amazing. I also never realized how much I appreciate everything in that airport being connected by corridors until I had to navigate CDG and it’s stupid trains and buses.

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My brother just went through Schiphol two weeks ago. Scheduled his connecting flight with a five hour layover just to be sure. Took him 5 hours and 20 minutes to make it through security.

Did he make the flight?

No, he missed it. He was trying to get to Porto, he ended up catching another flight the next day to Lisbon, and took a train from there to Porto.

Right now there is a crisis due to covid being "over" but allot of staff left/got fired and cant be re-hired as fast.

Schiphol is insane. I had the same thing happen to me a few months ago. Figured I’d go 5 hrs early just in case. Even without check bags I still missed my flight. I went 7 hrs early the next day and just made it due to departure delays. From what I heard they’re not letting people in until 5 hrs before their departure as the airport became too crowded.

I arrived in Heathrow yesterday 2.5 hours before my flight to a huge queue stretching outside the terminals into the parking lots. Mortifying to see. To my surprise I was past security in about an hour.

I was in that self same queue and also made it through surprisingly quick, only for my flight to Frankfurt being cancelled. Back at LHR now for round two.

Lucky you didn't go from Luton - there you'd have a bad airport time AND your flight cancelled (followed by more bad airport time).

I'm sorry it is a national shame.

The security staff was seriously underpaid and they got fed up with it. During COVID a lot of them switched to better paying careers. It will take months for new staff to be hired and trained unfortunately.

Yeah, I understand that we got there at the exact right time. Arrived in the middle of Dutch holidays, left right after.

To be fair, those ridiculous delays had little to do with the layout of the airport, and everything with how it’s managed.

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