Is Air France wrecking Schipol?

[757operator]

Schipol - once the nearest thing to perfection if you had to transfer between flights - now seems to induce the same headaches as all the rest, ie impossible turnrounds, bags that don't make it, buses everywhere. This seems to have coincided with Air France's "merger" with KLM.

Could it just be that Air France is sabotaging KLM's previously slick operation by starving ground services of resources and introducing impossible transfers that look great on the internet but are hardly achievable in practice? Wouldn't Air France just love it if all that interlining came to CDG instead?

[PPRuNe Radar]

I have lost bags twice in 35+ years of flying around as a passenger. Both times by KLM and both times when transferring at Schiphol.

These were well before Air France took them over.

Back to their old ways I guess rather than some plot by AF to run them down.

[perkin]

AMS has been renowned for losing bags and in some instances relieving passengers of the more valuable contents of their luggage (latter problem now largely solved I believe) for a long long time before the Air France merger. I think you're reading too much into this.

[Avman]

Schiphol is quite notorious for bags not making relatively short connections. Their system just can't cope. Absolutely nothing to do with Air France. During peak times it is not wise to go for connections under 90 minutes if you want your bags to accompany you.

[Bus429]

Still a much nicer airport than LHR, LGW etc...

[skydriller]

As others have mentioned, its not an Air France thing, just the usual schiphol problems occuring/returning again.:ugh:

What is interesting following the Air france take over is that you can still see price differences for the exact same flights if you check out both the KLM and AF websites.

I would also like to know if the KLM/AF computer systems are linked yet, as I still get the excuse "its because its a KLM ticket" from AF staff and "its because its AF....etc.etc..." from KLM staff, and its getting to be an old excuse now....:rolleyes:

There are other things that annoy too, but I dont have time...

[pacer142]

As others have mentioned, its not an Air France thing, just the usual schiphol problems occuring/returning again.:ugh:

I've waited nearly an hour for checked bags at AMS before. What's notable, though, is that there are multiple ground handlers, and Menzies are *far* faster than KLM Ground Services...

What is interesting following the Air france take over is that you can still see price differences for the exact same flights if you check out both the KLM and AF websites.

There are other examples. At LCY, Air France does its own ground handling, while KLM Ground Services are also there and do just about everyone else's that aren't done by Menzies.