My wife and I just exited the EU via Amsterdam. The lines to register our exit via the EES were long. We chose the "rapid line", since we had less than an hour to catch our next flight. The "rapid line" was not rapid at all. Luckily, an airport employee was asking those with less than 30 minutes to catch their flight to go into a different line, which we did. We were promptly processed, however we made it to our gate with 15 minutes to spare. Please be aware. I suggest looking at your EU entering and exiting airport websites to see if EES entry and exit processing times are long and what suggestions they might have for tight connections. FYI, Frankfurt was also chaos, with the processing taking 3 hours.
Posted by
1900 posts
Family just entered through AMS coming from the US, and were connecting onto another EU country. They said the signs they encountered were a little confusing in directing people to connecting flights vs it being a final destination. They said their entry time didn't take very long at all.
Posted by
Bend, OR
2076 posts
Yes, there’s lots of signs in Amsterdam but you need to look for the “Connecting” signs in yellow and you just follow them to passport control. Agents were directing some to EES gates and some to passport control officers.
We do Berlin to Heathrow to SFO on Tuesday. So excited….not!
Edit to add. Berlin was quick and easy. Line moved very quickly and EES was done by a passport officer. Maybe 5 minutes to process (fingerprints for right hand, wanted to know where and date we entered Schengen).
Posted by
2 posts
My husband and I found the signs in Schiphol confusing. We arrived from Istanbul on Turkish Air and needed to connect to a United flight to San Francisco. The signs indicated "Transfer," not "Connecting" flights. After going through kiosks where our passports were scanned, we were separated into two different lines that were actually exiting the airport. Fortunately, my line was shorter and processed quickly enough for me to realize that we were not in the correct area at all. We made our way up the escalator where the Transfers were processed. Airport personnel were helpful because my husband was in a huge, winding crowd taking over an hour to process.
Posted by
Bend, OR
2076 posts
Yes, my mistake, they are bright yellow and state “transfer” for connections. They are quite visible and if you follow them you should end up at passport control and then the connecting gates. I find Amsterdam one of the easier airports to navigate with a number of people around to assist if you become confused or if you have a short connection time.