The joy of Frankfurt Airport – APEX Expo and The Lufthansa Flying Lab
In this adventure
- A call from Germany
- Off to Heathrow T2. Wait. Terminal 2??
- LH2473 London Heathrow to Munich Airport
- Exploring innovation on the ground at Munich Airport
- LH424 Munich to Boston with Lufthansa and Recaro Aircraft Seating
- Into Boston, The Holiday Inn Bunker Hill
- Exploring Boston
- Robot and Bowl Food – Exploring Spyce… and lessons for the Passenger Experience?
- Oodles of Noodles – Pho and Ramen in Boston
- The APEX Conference and Expo – What you missed
- Back to Boston Logan International airport
- LH423 Boston Logan to Frankfurt-am-Main
- The joy of Frankfurt Airport
- LH924 Frankfurt to Heathrow… with a neo
- Train? Thataway
- The outlook for the next six months
Frankfurt Airport… early morning joy
With not much rest in me, I headed bleary-eyed through Frankfurt Airport.
Danke Boeing 747-8i!
Airbus A340
Lufthansa Boeing 747… in the new colours.
The first priority was establishing exactly what gate I would be going from. And this is more important at Frankfurt because this will judge if you need to enter the EU or not – and that has an impact on transfer times.
Hello Terminal 1, Area B
Somewhere in this direction maybe…
And if you’re on an hour or less transit time, knowing these things are important. Well, with an early arrival, I had 1 hour 15 on the clock. For Frankfurt-am-Main, it’s too tight for my liking.
I headed through the arrivals area and found my way into the Security queue.
On the good side, it meant that I had skipped Schengen. The bad news was there was a liquids check. So guess who had to down a bottle of water fast.
Yup – this guy.
The queues were sluggish – but moved along fast enough so I was at the other end of security in 15 minutes or so.
Still plenty of time for boarding.
I made to the gate area, passing the big Oktoberfest signs and Bayer signs.
You too can be an Airbus A380 operator!
Or do you prefer it in yellow?
Or just all the Kinder chocolates?
Oktoberfest!
And Bier.
Massive Bayer sign: Check.
I followed my nose to B47 (passing a few familiar sights on the way… and the points where other adventures had started).
Say no to plastic baggies!
Must be the season
Reaching the top of the satellite, boarding was nowhere near ready to commence. Which was a good thing – I had made my connection – with time to spare.
But after the less than satisfying second service aboard the last flight, I decided to have a currywurst. Because that’s a thing.
A choice was offered of Beef or Pork Currywurst. What came out… was this monstrosity.
Oh dear.
I might have written about this elsewhere. Suffice to say this falls under the category of “nicht gut”… and if you want a currywurst – try anywhere else than Frankfurt Airport.
Also. €5. Give. Me. Strength.
With a somewhat less than satisfying currywurst me in, checked in with the security people who were conducting passport and boarding pass checks before boarding – to get my pretty stamp.
With that done, I had a look outside. A few interesting planes were lurking
Air China Airbus A330
But the most interesting was the A320 in front of me. Or rather… this wasn’t an A320… it’s an A320neo. An easy way to spot one? Look for the engines. They’re big in comparison to the previous generations engines.
Neo I presume.
It looked like this would be my plane.
Boarding was delayed as there some issues with the plane. Such is life. Whilst some were getting more than a little annoyed, I just relaxed.
The seats look a good idea.
Well – what else can you do in a delay. Apart from check on the free Wi-Fi in the airport. Whilst the Wi-Fi is free, it isn’t what I’d exactly call fast.
Nicht schnell…
Eventually, business class was opened for boarding, as well as passengers needing assistance
Time to roll!
Finally, Economy class passengers were cleared to board. With the last flight of this trip to go, I passed through the automatic boarding gate and went down the jetway to head towards long
Next: LH924 Frankfurt Airport to London Heathrow.. with an Airbus A320neo!
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FRA boarding can be a drag. Were you able to just walk the jetway, were there steps? I often find the gates require walking down a long flight of steps. In my case, use of the escalator was denied and a request to use the lift was adamantly denied.
To clarify, every gate has its own escalator and lift (elevator). The gate agents prefer to not allow the escalator to be used to avoid people falling. The use of elevators is sometimes limited to those with a medical need noted on the record. My wife had injured her leg a few days prior and the ground staff were enjoying their ability to say no, NEIN.
I believe, in Terminal Z the boarding level is direct for 380 premium class and all others go down steps in the gate.
It’s worse when it’s bus gates at Frankfurt Airport. At that point – all bets are off (and yes, I’ve missed flights through FRA because of bussing).
I was lucky to get a jetway… I dread to think if they decided to bus a load of 747-8 passengers off the plane….
Had a bus gate deplaning an SQ 744 at FRA years ago. Interesting note; The purser refused to allow the crew bus to move till all pax were moving.
Believe it or not, time spent landing to exit is shorter with a bus gate, not true if transferring.