Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport has been suffering from chaotic long queues for almost a month now. With the nearing peak summer travel season, the unsolved situation has forced KLM to suspend sales of departure tickets until Monday.
Too much of a crowd
On April 23rd, the baggage handlers at Schiphol Airport walked out on strike, causing the airport's then-relatively minor workforce shortage issue to become even more significant. The airport's pains have grown even worse over the past month, resulting in numerous flight cancellations and significant delays for passengers as thousands of people were left waiting.
With its primary hub at Amsterdam Schiphol, it is far from surprising that KLM has had its fair share of operational issues due to the horrendously long queues during the security checks. The airline has confirmed as much on its website:
"We’re currently facing operational issues for flights departing from Amsterdam Airport Schiphol. These issues mainly occur during the security check. Unfortunately, the waiting lines at the security check are much longer than usual, which strongly impacts the waiting time."
Stranded at Schiphol
It hasn't helped that passengers have had trouble getting their missed flights rebooked, with several passengers ending up stranded in the airport as they waited days for an available flight. Seeing as how this is still an ongoing yet unfortunate trend, KLM is expecting a significant number of passengers to miss their flights in the coming days due to chaos.
Thus, the Dutch carrier wants to keep seats on its aircraft available for these unlucky passengers. However, the sale of tickets for the highest cabin classes will continue as usual, as spokeswoman Gerrie Brand said:
“KLM is putting a brake on ticket sales for flights leaving up until and including Sunday because Schiphol can't get its security problems fixed. The cap on ticket sales is needed to accommodate those who had missed their flights due to the chaos at the airport."
The Dutch arm of the Air France-KLM airline group is also extending an offer for passengers with tickets for flight departures in the next three days with the opportunity to change their flight plans.
Schiphol's action plan
Besides the dent in Schiphol's image created by KLM's latest move, a growing number of passengers who have looked for flights from other regional airports, such as Eindhoven and Rotterdam.
With passenger queues stretching outside of the terminal, the airport has presented an action plan to counteract the expected larger crowds during the summer period. The action plan consists of four points:
- Recruiting more employees, such as security guards
- Make working at Schiphol more attractive
- Optimizing the flow of passengers
- Making agreements with airlines about flight planning
According to the airport, these four points should be used to manage the expected summer crowds in the right direction, as highlighted by Chief Executive Officer Dick Benschop:
"It is not the case that travelers will no longer stand in line, but we do promise that we will do everything we can to provide travelers with a predictable and pleasant Schiphol experience."
Besides this action plan, Benschop still feels that airlines should be reducing the number of flights to solve the problem of increasing passenger numbers. However, airlines, understandably, are none too happy about it. Nor are travelers who have stood in line for hours while Benschop has been off in Switzerland and Davos.
Another dual issue for Benschop to deal with is the Dutch Trade Union Federation (FNV), either for the number of flights reduced or for better working wages and compensation for the airport staff. According to the union, some workers at Schiphol have even fallen over due to the immensely high work pressure.
On the other hand, carriers such as KLM feel that Benschop should be the one to resolve the issue in a way that does not involve flight cancellations. Solutions such as the spreading of flights and the use of other airports would have been preferable to canceling or reducing flights, hampering the recovery of the aviation industry. Moreover, Schiphol is not yet at pre-pandemic passenger levels, which signals that the current chaos is a worrying problem.
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A post-pandemic phenomenon
Unfortunately, the overcrowding situation is not unique to Amsterdam Schiphol. Similar scenes have been replicated in the UK, whereby several airports and airlines have also been hit by workforce issues causing long queues and cancellations. Long lines and passenger chaos have been reported at Birmingham, Heathrow, and Manchester, resulting in countless passengers missing flights.
In these situations, the catalyst remained the same: a sudden rebound in air travel demand. The resurgence came just as travel restrictions eased fully, coinciding with holidays. The airports, having let a significant amount of staff go during the crisis, have not been able to cope with such massive and rising numbers. How long it will be until the situation is under control is, at this point, anyone's guess.