Christopher Elliott Column - Viking River Cruises

[roothy123]

Frankfurt was a pretty efficient, quick airport when we had to travel through it. I don't remember how much time we had, except that it was not a lot, but we didn't have any problems. DeGaulle, and to a lesser extent, Heathrow, have been the airports that made us sweat a bit!

[tstr]

Roothy - I had heard from someone else that Frankfurt was efficient, At least that is my hope.

[swamp1sg]

Frankfurt was where we could not meet our connection. It was one run around after another and different information from every gate we were sent to. We finally got to the boarding gate but we were told it was too late (about 25 minutes before the flight was to take off.) Luthstansa was really nasty and we found the entire airport intimidating. Just the opposite of Munich who went out of their way to help us.

[CruisingAlong4Now]

This original thread is somewhat old, but I think it's still valid. It describes transferring at FRA. The original posts are from 2009, but it is still an active thread with postings this week.

 

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/miles-more-lufthansa-austrian-swiss-other-partners/982019-beginners-guide-connecting-fra-fra-connection-thread.html

 

You may want to search and/or post your connection questions on the flyertalk.com website. If you're looking into connections at FRA, look at the Lufthansa forum.

[shoshona2]

Hi again,

 

Just wanted to tell you all that we have been routed through Frankfurt about six times over the years. If we didn't have a two hour time span, we would have been stuck there. It is not a friendly airport. We arrived at LAX on February 28, 2012 and were told that there was a Lufthansa strike at Frankfurt and we might not get to India. We were also told to board our flight to Frankfurt and see an agent immediately upon arrival. I knew we had two days to get to the start of our tour and insurance, so I wasn't sweating it. When we arrived in Frankfurt, we tried to find an agent. We walked and walked and walked some more. We are World travelers and have been stuck at airports for various reasons -- one of which was the blackout of 2003 where we were stuck at JFK. My DH finally located a line with a rep and walked right up to her to find out if our plane was going or not. She said it was but couldn't tell us which gate. We really insisted and did not move from her face. Finally, she looked at her electronic flight indicator again and it came up. We had to board a train and move fast to get through security. Luckily, the lines were not long and we made our flight. The strike had been cancelled by the German government just before our flight was due to leave.

 

So, I strongly suggest that whoever is going through Frankfurt to have at least two hours to transit the airport.

 

Sheila

[Caroldoll]

two hours and we heard our flight being called all the time. We NEVER try to make a connection with anything less than two hours and prefer more. There seems to always be a hitch. If you want to be nervous and live on the edge that is another thing.

[tstr]

This original thread is somewhat old, but I think it's still valid. It describes transferring at FRA. The original posts are from 2009, but it is still an active thread with postings this week.

 

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/miles-more-lufthansa-austrian-swiss-other-partners/982019-beginners-guide-connecting-fra-fra-connection-thread.html

 

You may want to search and/or post your connection questions on the flyertalk.com website. If you're looking into connections at FRA, look at the Lufthansa forum.

 

Thanks - Great link very informative!!!

[Wendy The Wanderer]

Wendy: thanks for calling me" ignorant and/or living in a dream. "Again, I do not understand the need for people on this board to put down other people. At the time of the incident it was very stressful and not funny. The point of my post was to show that I didn't really expect any compensation nor did it stop us from doing river cruises again.

 

I wasn't actually talking about you, but "whatever". The point is, it behooves someone who has a cruiseline or TA arrange flights for them, to scrutinize them carefully and not accept flights that not "legal", or barely so.

[abredt]

Warning: Lufthansa is very strict about size of carry-on luggage. They weighed ours in Lyon and put "OK" stickers on them for the plane change in Frankfurt.

 

Both flights were in the same terminal, but it took us almost an hour to find the departure gate and go through security again.

 

Good Luck, cb

[roothy123]

Thanks for posting the Flyer Talk thread - very informative. I occasionally go over to Flyer Talk for stuff, but haven't thought about it in a while. I'll have to check it when we fly to Europe this summer. As I said before, we didn't have any trouble transferring at FRA, and it took less than an hour, but I really like to be prepared and get as much info as I can prior to traveling, so will keep Flyer Talk bookmarked!