KLM - 40 minute connection?

[TheMildManneredMilitant]

Looking at flights for family next August from Newcastle to Basel and KLM are offering a connecting flight with only 40 mins at Schiphol. Would you/have you booked similar before? They say on their own website min recommended transfer time is 50 mins but they are still offering it. If you miss it they'll book you on next available flight - so in theory no worse off than if we booked the longer connection/later flight - but not sure how many would have last minute space for 5 in summer holidays!

Seems very tight, Schipol is a big airport (bus from gate to terminal kind of big) plus you’ll need to go through passport control? I don’t think I’d want to risk my luggage not making it even if I did manage to leg it and get on the connecting flight…

That's very tight, I'd rather book on the next flight than have the stress.

How long would you have to wait for the next flight to Basel?

Thanks all. Kind of what I was thinking. Next flight would be 4 hours wait.

No way would I book that.

I think it is on the tight side. Why don't you go from EDI direct to BSL ? thus saving the hassle and the worry. Obviously I don't know when you want to go, and whether the flight times suit, and you may have considered this already, but it is £52 to £75 in August generally, and it is only a tenner up on the train which takes 90 mins, then can't remember quite the price for the tram but about £6 I think (or drive and park, we have done this for cheaper than the train and tram). Worth a thought ??

It’s likely a flight from Newcastle will need a bus to get you all to the terminal at Schipol- this can take up to half an hour from plane seat to terminal.

But they’re selling you the ticket so the airline must think you have a realistic chance of making it.

I had a connecting flight at schipnol last decwmber was meant to be manc schipnol - prague buuut, the weather was awful in amsterdam so we got stuck there with the next flight out three days later 😪😪😪 so we never made it to Prague. Just bear that in mind!

The reason i booked the connecting flight was because it was meant to get us to Prague before lunch. All other flights were afternoon departure.

It's quite a nice airport to wait in!

That does seem tight, especially if traveling with children. Also, to flag that the "no worse off" is only "in theory" - if the next flight doesn't have enough seats for all of you, you'd have to wait for the flight after that (or the flight after that if things are really busy). Another reason why it is riskier when traveling as a family than as a solo travler.

Far too tight a transfer time at Schipol. If the flight from Newcastle was delayed leaving you’d be scuppered.

no way. Most flights start boarding at least 30-40 mins before departure time.

Even if you make the flight it would be a push to get hold luggage from one plane to the next. Better to have the four hours in Schiphol as you seem to have already decided. I've done several tight connections in Schiphol due to delays for inbound plane and it's grim. Due to the hub and spoke style of the airport it can be a very long way from one gate to the next. I've had to run before and my luggage did not have the same sense of urgency 🙄

No way, Schipol is huge and the terminal is like a spider with lots of legs from a central hub so you can have miles to walk between gates. It's also prone to fog which can lead to delays with inbound flights.

I've done 50 minutes in Singapore on my way to Bali with an 8 and 6 year old. It was doable but tight! Singapore Airlines had staff waiting who were pointing us in the right direction and telling us where to go.

My DD had 1 hour in Doha and failed to make the flight. 90 mins late leaving Heathrow! Don’t even attempt it! 4 hours is fine - you simply don’t know what can go wrong these days.

We had 75 minutes between flights at Schiphol in the summer and all worked out fine despite a late departure from the UK. We had been due to land in Schiphol at 7:35pm and depart for Singapore from Schiphol at 8:50pm. Our flight left UK about 40 mins late, a bus was waiting for us on arrival and they disembarked everyone with connections first. The bus drove us a heck of lot more centrally than where we had arrived and dropped us at a door and we had a fairly short power walk through the terminal to our gate, arrived at the gate for the Singapore flight at 8:25pm and they hadn't even started boarding. Definitely stressful but even our bags made it onto the flight to Singapore, they were very efficient.

Remember that the scheduled arrival time is when the wheels touch the ground (the actual arrival time for EU261 purposes is when the door opens). So you will have at least 10 minutes just for the plane to get to the gate after landing, plus time to get to the door of the plane from seat 27B. (Yes, there is usually 15 minutes of slack in the schedule, but things rarely go to plan. Landing at the scheduled time is about the best you can hope for.)

Then you have passport control (because you enter the Schengen area at Amsterdam, and AMS-BSL is an internal Schengen flight). And the Schengen thing also means that you will definitely have to change piers at Amsterdam as well (because all non-Schengen flights will arrive in one part of the airport so they can centralise passport control).

I wouldn't even think about booking this with less than 60 minutes, and I wouldn't be feeling confident with less than 90.

Absolutely not. Do the 4 hour wait.

We had a 45 minute connection. We had to run through the airport to get to our next flight. We managed but id rather wait the 4 hours for the next flight!

That’s too tight. It’s a really big airport. I wouldn’t risk it personally. Edited to add with the recent turmoil at European airports with biometric passports etc it could take you over an hour to clear passport control. I doubt you could make it

I’ve done both, and made the tight one with no children.

Pretty key was that at no point did we ever stop moving. No loo stop, no shoe laces, no nothing and a swift pace throughout.

EDI - BSL is a delight, and the fast park parking at Edinburgh is bliss. I’d drive the 2.5 hours from Newcastle airport up to Edinburgh rather than connect at Schipol. If you don’t drive, train to haymarket and tram out to Edinburgh airport is simple.

Absolutely not. You’ll have to go through immigration at schipol because you’re entering Schengen and with a U.K. passport you’ll be in the “other” queue ….

We had an hour in Schipol and we needed to walk very fast between the gates. We'd already checking in for the second leg via a terminal rather than needing a transfer desk an we made our flight about 10 minutes before boarding.

Three days stuck in Amsterdam on a way to Prague? That must have been some absolute irregularity, as there are 6 KLMs and 1-2 Easy jets every day on this route since mid 2024.

I got unlucky enough once to get 24 hours delayed (and 4 times re-routed) on a way from a smaller airport in Europe to Montreal, but 3 days on Amsterdam-Prague is wild.