Frankfurt (FRA) > Reviews > Europe's most pathetic airport experience

Author's product rating:   

Advantages:	None  -  standards of cleanliness are more acceptable than suggested by other reviewers
Disadvantages:	The absolute logistical nightmare

Recommend to potential buyers:

no

Full review

Anyone expecting German efficiency at this airport is going to be sourly disappointed. What they will get is the most inefficient airport management in Europe, plus abuse. On 7 April, arriving on LH from Moscow and transferring to Paris CDG, I was sent around full circle by the atrociously confusing signposting at FRA, trying to make my way to the connecting flight at terminal 1. To my great dismay it took me a full 45 minutes to find myself again at square one, in the same hall, in front of the same border control post that I had successfully negotiated before. FRA had been bad enough up until then: cancellation of onward flight I had originally been booked on, long bus transfer, an information desk lady unable to give conclusive information when asked, 35 minute queue to receive a new boarding pass, then being assigned a false gate number, screens that did not display my flight when I tried to check the information on my boarding pass. With time growing increasingly short I realised that I had arrived in the ultimate Kafkaesque nightmare of an airport. Each time I pointed out the multiple problems to staff, I was faced with an extremely cavalier attitude that saw no problem in pinning the blame on my own presumed inability to follow the signs. Only one security staff admitted that he himself got lost in the airport's meandering corridors, while the other ten staff I spoke to during my FRA calvary were confident in their rebuttal of any criticism. What I had to conclude from this customer service experience was that nobody was seriously interested in getting me to the gate on time. Thus insult was added to injury. If I did get there in time then this was entirely due to my own initiative. The problems also have serious security implications: how I could get through border control, then security control, and from there back into the public non-security area is still a mystery to me. So not only is Frankfurt terminal 1 an insult to the passenger, but it is also unsafe. My final count was a total of three border controls and three security checks - which seemed to pop up out of nowhere behind every corner - following the inadequate and misleading signing (some of which had been replaced by indications written onto cardboard!!!!!). Due to severe overcrowding as well as non existant queue management each check involved at least a 10 minute wait - for EU passport holders (for non EU-citizens the wait was even worse). At some point I grew certain that I would never reach the gate on time. And I wouldn't have, if I hadn't picked up myself that the information on my boarding card (gate A25 instead of gate A11) was false. The procedures varied at each of the security checks, with my 90 ml jar of caviar making it through two, but then being picked up by the third security check (thus adding another 5 minutes to my schedule). Lecturing me on the new security rules, my 90 ml jar was below the limits and should have not been picked up on. Why there should be so many security checks is beyond belief anyway. This airport is the best example of a security environment where common sense and sense of proportion have been totally abandoned. When I finally reached gate 11 - after transferring for over one and a half hours - I was thoroughly dispirited. The final straw for me was an airport worker at boarding who demanded to see not only my boarding card, but also my paper ticket. I replied that I no longer had this, as I was convinced that I had lost it during one of the three preceding security checks which involved emptying one's pockets, undoing belts and shoes etc. Therefore I was unable to produce this ticket immediately, which earned me the response that I would be unable to board the flight. This member of staff then explained to me in no unsure terms that the actual ticket was what the airline made money with, equivalent to a dollar or euro bill - a message for which, considering what I had been through, I cared very little at this point. This was the one time I snapped in return, for a friendly and subtle admonishment that I search my pockets a second time (instead of a lecture on the value of airline tickets) would have been far more effective. Obviously this particular member of staff had no idea how to deal with a passenger who had been thrown off his balance, not by his own doing, but by the hellish experience of FRA airport. I did manage to find my ticket, but the limits had been reached. After my experience yesterday, 7 April 2008, I vow to never use FRA again. I do not want to imagine what the experience must be like for families with kids or for older or infirm people. The airport is possibly acceptable (but I won't take that chance either) if you are boarding a direct flight, but as a transfer hub - and every second passenger here is a transfer passenger - it is an overcrowded and undermanaged nightmare. The reasons for the mess? I hadn't used the place myself since before 9/11 - when I noticed nothing of this sort. Perhaps the increased security demands as well as increased traffic have thrown FRA off its balance. But this is no excuse. Other airports have also had to cope - and they cope well. All this is sad for Lufthansa which in actual fact is a good airline. Perhaps the lesson is to transfer through Munich (if possible), Lufhansa's other major hub.