The designers of Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport decided to go with a single terminal approach. This means that instead of having multiple terminals connected by an automatic train-esque vehicle with a pompous name, there is only one single terminal and you have to walk. All the way. To gate D87. Which is about as far as it sounds. And to make the experience fun for pilots, too, they invented Polderbaan, a runway somewhere close to Belgium. In some cases, it would probably be faster if the plane were to taxi directly to the destination airport.

Two more things make Schiphol stand out among its rivals as an important hub. One is the slowest, most unfriendly, and most incompetently done security check in all of Europe. But at least they love doing them. So much so, that in the non-Schengen part, they add an extra, secondary check right before the gate, making sure you can’t bring any water on the plane whatsoever. SAS and their ilk must love Schiphol.

The other is the announcements. That the moving sidewalks announce randomly “Watch your step” is a lame copy of American customer care. But the late boarding calls which end in “Immediate boarding please. We will proceed to offload your luggage” are truly unique. Not least, because they most likely have misplaced the luggage anyway, which is what Schiphol does best.