Back to Frankfurt Airport and the joy of German Effienceny.
A Change of Scenery
In this adventure
- Well, 2020 is turning out to be a fine year for travel…
- Travel preparations
- Off to Birmingham Airport
- LH959 Birmingham to Frankfurt-am-Main International
- Entering Germany
- Frankfurt Airport XXL Tour
- Into Frankfurt
- Hotel: Mercure Hotel City Messe, Frankfurt
- Exploring Frankfurt in these odd times
- Back to FRA
- LH954 Frankfurt to Birmingham
- Welcome back to the UK
- A welcome change
With me exiting the hotel, I turned left and started tracking back to the Hauptbahnhof. I was keeping an eye on the time – as my flight would be departing at 12 – so setting off at 945 was a little risky, but I should have enough time all being well.
Sonntag
Watch out for marauding trams
Bahnhof Side Entrance.
After getting to the Hauptbahnhof, I picked up my €5 ticket back to the airport – again paid with a contactless card.
From Frankfurt to Eternity.
To the CityTunnel platforms
Going down.
€5 for the ride.
It seems that parts of Germany are getting used to this contactless payments malarkey (in fact the only time I reached for a physical card this trip was when paying at the hotel. In terms of cash… when I brought a currywurst and some pretzels late in the evening).
With a ticket in hand, I dropped down to the city tunnel and platform 103 – where a train was 5 minutes away.
I like the chalked in train lines you need to catch
Zug!
Doing good so far.
Eventually, a train showed up for the ride back to the airport. Again, this was one of the new trains that operate in the Main area. This one was busier than the one I caught from the airport the day before – but there was still plenty of social distancing going on.
Zum Flughafen
Crossing the Main
Seating
As well as mask-wearing. The locals might not wear them on the street, but on public transport, everyone was wearing one.
Flughafen
Arriving at the airport, it was a matter of exiting the train station and heading up to departures
Never change Frankfurt.
I headed for an appropriate queue to get my bag tagged (as I had the boarding pass a few hours earlier).
However, I was prevented from checking in my rucksack at this queue – and had to go to manual check-in.
1.5 meters apart people.
Scan to get a luggage label
KEIN GEPÄCK IM AUTOMATISIERTEN BEREICH!
It seems that rucksacks of any size offend the automated drop-off machines at Frankfurt Airport still.
I stood in a queue for 20 minutes (with people respecting the 1.5-meter social distancing rules).
Queues.
I used the idle time to check the bandwidth of the Wi-Fi connection at the airport. It was shocking. Shockingly good.
This flies in the face of most German Wi-Fi hotspots I’ve seen. Ever
Or happy for the Airport fees?
I was eventually seen by an agent and my bag was accepted without any questions. What a waste of time
With that done, I headed down the B section security. This for a Sunday… well – there was only one word to describe it.
Dead.
*crickets*
However, that didn’t stop the security team taking apart my bag for electronics (even though the camera and laptop were pulled out – they wanted all the cables and power banks out.
So much for German efficiency.
With the formalities complete, I headed to the German/Schengen Border. Even though the chip in my passport was non-functional, they were happy to let me leave the country.
That board – compared to normal – is empty.
Oh yes. You can get COVID-19 Tested here too. If only other airports in the world would do that, with government support.
With that, I was in the B satellite. There was a bit of traffic around the airport, trying to make it look busy.
Turkish Airlines Airbus A330
Air Malta Airbus A320
When clearly, the place is a ghost town to the times I’ve been there before.
This is dead.
More sanitiser.
I headed onwards to the gate – as time was vanishing in front of me. However, I did have a little time to see if there were any model airplanes worth buying…
€79.99???
€59.99… A bit expensive. To say the least.
Approaching the gate area, I avoided stopping for currywurst here (least of all, last time its was €5 of pure disappointment).
Here lies the most disappointing currywurst in Germany. End of debate.
The Gate.
I passed that and saw the Airbus A320neo being prepared. Well, it was booked as an A319 originally, and that’s what I thought we had… until the service vehicles were cleared away, and the aircraft was readied for service
The sharklets are a big giveaway.
Ah, A320neo it is.
Once more into the Matrix.
This one has been through the rebranding process, and whilst the white looked white, the blue still has far too much shade of black. If only there was some sort of colour they could use to accent it… some sort of yellow might work.
Nah, Yellow paint won’t get plaques.
I like big turbofans and I cannot lie.
Eventually, boarding was called, this time by premium classes, then reverse rows. I took my place in the line – trying to be socially distant as possible.
Eventually, I passed the first control point – a passport check, and then the automated barriers. With a blip of my boarding pass, I was let through.
It was time to start the journey home.
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