A failure of the Royal Netherlands Marechaussee’s electronic passport-control system at Amsterdam Schiphol on Sunday disabled all 78 e-gates for about 10 hours, forcing arriving and departing passengers to use manual counters. Queues reached 90 minutes during the Dutch autumn school holiday, and several hundred passengers missed flights, including connecting services.
The disruption began at approximately 06:00 local time and affected travellers passing between non-Schengen destinations and the airport, while security screening continued normally. All available manual counters were opened, and officers used a reduced checking procedure to ease congestion, but average waits remained around one hour.
The system was restored at about 14:30, after which queues began to shorten. KLM held aircraft where possible, causing delays of roughly 15 minutes on some services, while Transavia offered flexibility for passengers requiring rebooking. The Marechaussee attributed the incident to an IT malfunction and found no indication of a cyberattack; the precise technical cause remained under investigation.