Extremely long lines for Schiphol departure terminals after brief power outage

A power outage caused massive queues at Schiphol Airport’s departure hall 3 on Friday morning. A BBC reporter who happened to be at the scene spoke of “unbelievable chaos,” reporting that the queue to security was about 300 meters long, with thousands waiting in line. “Never seen anything like it,” Richard Colebourn said on X, formerly Twitter.

“This morning, we experienced a temporary power outage in Departure Hall 3. That has now been resolved, but it has made the airport busier than normal. Our sincere apologies for the inconvenience,” Schiphol responded to a traveler’s query about the long lines on X.

@Schiphol airport…40 minutes later?? pic.twitter.com/CLiAzPqXKq

— ebms (@emzybee89) November 3, 2023

The power outage lasted about 45 minutes, coming back on at around 9:00 a.m. But during that time, the airport couldn’t check in travelers and their baggage, a spokesperson for Schiphol told De Telegraaf.

Passengers from United, Emirates, Qatar Airways, and EasyJet, among others, use departure hall 3. Airport workers diverted some passengers to get processed in the other departure halls, so departure halls 1 and 2 were also quite crowded.

It is unclear whether the lines will have consequences for Schiphol’s departure schedule and whether any passengers missed their flights.