Prague-Ruzyne airport

Prague-Ruzyne airport is one of the biggest airports in the area of Eastern and Middle Europe. In 2008 there were 12 630 550 passengers handled at this airport. If you are going through this airport as a passenger you should expect a nice experience. The airport was also rated by Skytrax as the best airport in Eastern and Middle Europe.

The airport itself is located 5 kilometers west of Prague near the Ruzyně part. There are 2 operational runways, but only one is usually used at the time. Third runway is closed at the time and is used for parking aircrafts only. There are four terminals at Prague, but only two of them are used for scheduled flights. Terminal 3 is for private and special flights and terminal 4 for government flights.

So as a passenger you will only get to terminals 1 and 2. At Prague it is pretty easy to determine which terminal you are going to fly from. If your destination is outside Schengen area, then go to terminal 1, but if you are flying just within Schengen, then go to terminal 2.

If you are in transit, then just follow transit signs, which will lead you to your departure gate. There is no need to use any bus or something like that. Everything is within the walking distance. If you are transferring between the two terminals, then expect, then you will have to go through immigration.

If you wish to go to the city center, then the only way to go is to use a bus, or use a taxi, but please be aware, that in Prague there are many unofficial taxis, where you will pay a large amount of money for going just a few kilometers far away. So I definitely recommend you to use the bus. It is cheap. I think, that it costs about 20 CZK and you will get to the subway station Dejvická, which is really close to the city center. Of course if you wish to rent a car at Prague, there is no problem.

Czech republic is now part of the Schengen area, so visa requirement are the same as for any other Schengen country. You can entry with Schengen visa if you are not from one the countries, which have visa free arrangements with EU.

Transit at Amsterdam Schiphol

Are you going to transit at Amsterdam Airport Schiphol? Well, this airport is in my opinion one of the most user friendly ones in Europe. And if I remember well it was also marked by skytrax as the best one in Europe.

Whole airport is built in one terminal concept, so you will never have to change terminals while transiting at Schiphol airport. The one terminal is divided into Piers B,C,D,E,F,G,H,M. Once you arrive at the airport simply follow signs for your departure gate. Gates in Schiphol are beginning with a letter, which is marking a pier, your flight will depart from. For example if departure gate F06 is marked on your boarding pass, so then you should proceed to the pier F for your departure flight.

All piers are connected by convenient moving walkways, so you will get from one side of the airport to the another side in quite a short time and really comfortably. The only obstacle for you may be the immigration if you are transferring between Schengen/International or International/Schengen. Airport is divided in approximately in its half to Schengen and non-Schengen part. So piers B,C, and the upper floor of D are Schengen and the lower floor of D and piers E,F,G,H are Schengen. The last one pier, pier M is Schengen, but is used on for low-cost flights as well as pier H.

As Schiphol airport is very efficient in my opinion 1 hour connection is perfectly fine and you shouldn't have any toruble. Should you miss your connection proceed to the transfer desk of your airline, or in my opinion you may use the self-service transfer desk as well.

At this airport all signs in the airside are all in English only, but all announcements are trilingual. They are in English, Dutch and the language of the country, where does the plane goes to.

So that's all about transiting at Schiphol. I wish you a very pleasant journey.