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dimrstone
No problems for me flying out of Schiphol on Tuesday.
Everything was fine!

It took me two hours to get through the gates but everything was on schedule.

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The Worst.

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grzegorz67

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FrogSugar
Ugh...just when I was thinking of flying to Liverpool cuz they get Echo and the Bunnymen (likely the only opener I'll like this run)...

A warning about Paris, on Saturday the RERs were on strike the day of the football league final expressly to create chaos; it's very possible they may go on strike the day the Stones play Paris Hippodrome Longchamp making it hell to get to the show from the airport and from the suburbs!

The RER were on strike the day of the 14OF show at the Stade de France. So everyone squashed onto the Metro instead, which luckily weren't on strike.

That happened at the Champions League final this year as well. The union called the strike a succsess because of the chaos it contributed to. This is a quote from a tweet from journalist Miguel Delaney on Twitter a few weeks ago:

"From AFP: Paris transport unions called Tuesday for a new strike to coincide with a French international football match, hailing the "success" of their action at the weekend that contributed to the chaos that marred the Champions League final between Liverpool and Real Madrid."

I won't be surprised if they try to target the Longchamp show with 100,000 people attending. And if RER is on strike, that normally affects Charle de Gaulle airport as well. Just be prepared.

Yeah, the strikers are going for maximum-impact dates. As the Stones show falls on a Saturday, I'm sure they would love to take that day off while ruining things for thousands of people. As others have said, it's best to not fly in on show day. Of course, there's bus shuttles and taxis, but car traffic is going to be crazy congested if that's everyones plan-B.

Schiphol will limit the daily amount of travellers which means flights will be cancelled from july on.

I went home through Schiphol the morning after the Amsterdam cancellation. The queue was endless, through tents on the street a long walk outside the terminal. I do have "Fast Track" printed on my ticket, but in the chaos with thousand plus people packing every square foot of the terminal, there was nobody to ask, no way to find where to go, except for the one and only LONG LONG queue.

As I entered the Schiphol terminal building, there was a sign saying "Do not enter if your flight is in more than 4 hours". My flight was in 3.5h so that was ok.

The three pictures below is not really telling how bad it was. A few people did jump the queue, but I am surprised how many actually acted normal. I guess most people knew it would take a long time.

It took one and a half hour to get into the terminal, through security, not bad, still not nice if do have problems standing or walking for a long time.

They did even send me out of Schengen, I asked a police man why I had to show my passport. Then he told me they sent me the wrong way. So I had to queue for another 20 minutes to get back into Schengen.

I had a train ticket from Amsterdam to Bern, not used. Next time I go to Amsterdam I don't think I will have a return flight out of that airport.







Bjornulf

Looks like the lucky dip line in Munich!

With the usual warnings that this is from a UK tabloid (but not the off-scale fanciful Daily Fail)...

[www.mirror.co.uk]

Ouch.

--
Captain Corella
60 Years a Fan

Anybody knows about British airways and refund?

What about a refund if you have bought Business tickets from British airways? Can you just cancel if you do not want to travel and get all your ticket costs reimbursed?

And what about Economy tickets?

All the Best!

I also flew out of Schipol the morning after what should have been the show. I arrived at Amsterdam Centraal at midday, got the metro to the airport, arrived at the airport and had cleared security by 1pm. The problems occur if you have luggage to check in. I had a rucksack only and had no issues.

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thunderball
I also flew out of Schipol the morning after what should have been the show. I arrived at Amsterdam Centraal at midday, got the metro to the airport, arrived at the airport and had cleared security by 1pm. The problems occur if you have luggage to check in. I had a rucksack only and had no issues.

I do never have luggage, I travel with a small carry on bag only. Still you have to get through security, also, flights may get canceled. In Manchester they canceled my flight and gave me a 13 hours travel back home from the Liverpool show. Also, in Manchester, the worst airport in Europe in my view, half of the bags go through manual check at security, which takes another 20 minutes, and the noise level at the airport is 80 dB so bad you need a week of rest after being there. These things happen. You can not trust airliners and airports this summer. It is a bit wild west. You need time, plenty of time.

Bjornulf

My flight was from Schiphol on 16th 11:40AM. Heard about the chaos, so got to the airport at 7:20. There's nobody (no people, zero, 0) at the security check at Terminal 3, gate M. Went for a coffee. Around 8AM still nobody except 3 bored clerks, I decided to go in, to sniffing around, maybe there's one more secu check what I couldn't see. Got thru the security alone, in to the transit hall, where I realized that there is no other line for my actual gate. Still plenty of time till the departure, so I headed to the exit for some fresh air and sunshine, if you know what I mean.

In the end I started again around 10:30, 5 min to get in, then I had to go to the boarding gate anyway. So it depends on the airways or gates, this was EasyJet.

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Matt1984
Airport chaos is in the UK is also never as bad as what the media makes it out to be.

The opposite of Stockholm Arlanda then.

National strike Monday 20 June 2022: Brussels Airport cancels all departing flights (Aviation24.be)

Bjornulf

Crazy… what a weird time

Its the same in the US, postponed flights, and long security wait lines. I flew back into DC two weeks ago, no problems on the flight, but it took one hour for my luggage to show up.

Yes - major problems in the US as well, with things expected to get worse....

From NBC.com:

Thousands of flight cancellations mark holiday weekend

More than 6,300 flights were delayed within, into or leaving the U.S. on Saturday,
and 859 flights were canceled, according to the flight tracking platform FlightAware.

More. > Flight cancellations

_____________________________________________________________
Rip this joint, gonna save your soul, round and round and round we go......

Most airports across the world got rid of a lot of staff and security people during the pandemic, to save money. A lot of these positions at airports are typically low paid jobs, and their thought they would get them back after the pandemic. Only problem is those low paid people found other safer jobs. There is no quick fix, except paying them better, which means higher cost of travel.

Bjornulf

Lots of commuter flights in the US are being canceled but I made it through the security line at Atlanta International today in less than 10 minutes and it’s one of the busiest airports in the world. Headed to Milano now

This is where having higher level frequent flier status really helps. Through my Delta status I have access to KLM and Virgin Atlanta priority check in and security access, lounge access with free drinks and food and if my flight is cancelled I will be at the top of the stand by food chain. I am flying SFO to London Heathrow Wednesday night and flying home Amsterdam Heathrow on KLM with a 4 hour layoff to SF on Virgin Atlantic. If Amsterdam is too much of a mess I can take the train to London and get out of Heathrow.

Heathrow CEO John-Holland Kayne:
“I think it will take 12 to 18 months for the aviation sector to fully recover capacity, so we will have to really carefully manage supply and demand.”
[www.businesstraveller.com]

Easy Jet announces today it will cancel dozens of flights to and from Gatwick.
Hope this won't affect anyone going to Hyde Park.
[news.stv.tv]

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The Worst.
Easy Jet announces today it will cancel dozens of flights to and from Gatwick.
Hope this won't affect anyone going to Hyde Park.
[news.stv.tv]

Confirmation in The Guardian [www.theguardian.com]

(The Guardian is a reliable source.)

I'm also aware of current long delays for inbound baggage in Manchester.

--
Captain Corella
60 Years a Fan

It will get worse, but still, the press makes it look like a crisis. It is not. You just have to be prepared, and patient. Also, forget about luggage, if you can.

Bjornulf

Well, it hit me as well...here's what I posted on FB this morning:

Looks like I will just get to "travel and explore" a bit more this summer.

Remember that Stones Amsterdam show that got rescheduled from June 13 to July 7? Well, fine, since I didn't have a return flight from my London trip yet I booked a one-way KLM flight from Heathrow to Amsterdam on July 6. No problem. Do the show. And then a return home to Helsinki on Finnair on July 8.

Well, Finnair now cancelled my July 8 flight from AMS because of Schiphol traffic restrictions. And they say they can't re-route me.

So what am I gonna do? KLM one-way direct to Helsinki is prohibitely expensive at 600€+.

What I'm doing is I'll book a train from Amsterdam ArenA via Arnhem to Düsseldorf on July 8, stay the night in a cheap hotel, then fly from Düsseldorf to Helsinki on July 9.

And me and my girlfriend are scheduled to fly from Helsinki to Krakow on July 11!

Hey, they did say international travel's back! Sure seems to be.

Good luck Topi. All this nonsense makes me want to drive but I am going with the flow. Arrival to London wasn't too bad.

Save the climate and take the train or buses before you spend one frustrating day inside an airport... Might be less stress and takes similar time

Okay, I forgot the train strikes in UK



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 2022-06-24 13:20 by Stoneswolf.

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daspyknows
Good luck Topi. All this nonsense makes me want to drive but I am going with the flow. Arrival to London wasn't too bad.

London arrival was surprisingly smooth, luggage and all. The only thing was we had to wait on the tarmac for 45 mins+ to get parked an unloaded. No biggie, I got to sleep a bit more.

So far on this SIXTY tour I have had 19 flights. Of these I would say one out of four have been delayed by an hour or more, one flight five hours delayed, one cancelled, and also I have rescheduled and changed flights several times, in order to avoid more trouble and cancellations.

Scandinavian Airlines (SAS), our main airliner in Scandinavia, had warned about a pilot strike starting Wednesday June 29, so I changed most of my flights to BA, LH, Swizz, Austrian etc some weeks ago. Also, there was some other strikes in late June, with technicians on Oslo Airport, resulting in Norwegian Airlines flights being cancelled, so that airliner was also out of question.

The SAS pilots kept talking with their management way past the deadlines, but after three new dates given, they went on strike Monday morning July 4 at 11am, about the same time as I was about to check out of my hotel in London, and travel on to Amsterdam.

For the rest of the tour, I will mostly stay on the tour, and use train travel rather than airlines. Life is too short to be spent on airports for hours, being fooled by bad excuses from airliners.

Bjornulf

I hear you about the airports. Amsterdam was a late add and getting out of London on the Aerostar was a challenge. On Sat coming back from Rock Werchter festival (got to see music on off days) I booked the last seat available Tuesday to Brussels. Monday sold out to Paris and Brussels. I had a Thursday first class seat to Brussels already and cost me 90GBP to change to a second class ticket. All good, I am in Amsterdam now.

I had orginally booked SAS out of London on Monday. Thankfully, I changed the airline company a few days before the strike and got home safely with another company. My original SAS flight from Heahtrow was cancelled. At least they've promised me my money back. Hope they sort things out before I fly with SAS to and from Stockholm later on the tour!

At LHR 4 hours before my departure to AMS.

Hope my bag makes it...

Security check took an hour!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2022-07-06 17:41 by Topi.