Union's claim of security strike causes confusion at Schiphol

A report by trade union FNV about an unannounced strike at the already crowded Schiphol airport caused a lot of uncertainty on Wednesday. Schiphol itself denied that there was a strike at the airport.

FNV campaign manager Joost van Doesburg, who reported the strike, later nuanced his words. He said he understood from security guards via a chat that they were no strike, but could not check whether they had already stopped working.

According to FNV, the security workers went on a "wild strike," which means the union did not organize it. Van Doesburg said it was therefore very difficult for him to make hard statements about what was going on. He acknowledged that he received various noises from the employees at the airport. He also understood that other security guards were taking over the work of those who said they were on strike. "It could also be that the strikers returned to work quickly," he suggested. In any case, the wild strike had no impact."

A traffic support employee told a reporter at the scene that they heard departure halls 1 and 2 would close, but that decision was withdrawn again a little later. Closing the departure halls would cause massive delays, the employee said.

It was already very busy in the airport hall. The escalator to gates A, B, C, and D was closed. According to a Schiphol employee, the escalators should typically be open. The closure is causing long lines at the entrance as travelers have to walk around to get to the right place. Officially, nothing seems to have been decided yet. But people are being sent to the exit to rejoin the queue via a different route. Many people are on the move.

A security guard said that there would have been a strike at a security company between 11:00 a.m. and noon, after which another company would have taken over the work. A KLM employee said that the situation had caused delays.

Last weekend, Schiphol asked airlines to cancel flights because of too little capacity, mainly due to a shortage of security workers. They were not on strike at the time.

A week earlier, KLM ground staff went on an unannounced strike, causing chaos at the airport. Flights were delayed or canceled, and passengers' luggage could not be loaded onto planes. The luggage had to be forwarded to the destinations.