Staff problems at border control to cause lines at Schiphol this summer: report

People traveling through Schiphol Airport this summer can again expect some long lines due to staff shortages at border control, De Telegraaf reports. There are also concerns about the staffing at baggage handling and on the platform.

The border control issues will mainly affect travelers from outside the European Union. “The Netherlands is struggling with a shortage of police personnel, which also impacts the deployment of the border police. The automatic passport control is often out of order because there is not enough staff or because there are malfunctions,” the website Vlucht-vetraagd.nl said in a report.

The Koninklijke Marechaussee, a policing force that falls under the Dutch military and is responsible for border security, said it is not short on personnel. But on peak days, it has to focus its deployment on departing air traffic and transferring passengers at the airport.

“We try to deploy extra manpower from other brigades on peak days. But at some times on peak days, longer queues can occur. We concentrate on departure and transfer when it’s busy. Then people have to wait longer on arrival,” the Koninklijke Marechaussee told the Telegraaf.

According to the newspaper’s sources, the Koninklijke Marechaussee does meet the demand, but the demand is too low to handle all the people traveling through the Amsterdam airport.

Trade union FNV also raised the alarm about still-existing staff shortages on the platform and in baggage handling. “For travelers, that means a long wait for their suitcase, and I certainly expect flight cancellations. We see airlines going further and further to ensure that a flight departs on time, and that has a negative effect on the workload,” Jaap de Bie of FNV said.