JoanneH

Frankfurt Time?
Due to airline time change my daughter now has 1 hr 5min between planes. She is flying in from Dulles and going on to Venice. Is that hour enough to get through customs etc.? She has the same problem on her return from Naples only on return its 45min all changes made by airlines so I assume if something goes wrong they will get her there but she is worried about it. Anyone with recent experience at Frankfurt can you comment? Thanks

dfr4848

First, she won't go through customs in FRA, coming or going. She'll go through passport/immigration controls (2 times going over; 3 times coming back - at least that's been our experience). 1+ hr should be OK IF incoming flight on time. 45 minutes is cutting it close, but we've done it before when we had 20 min due to late plane and both us and our bags made it (but I wouldn't recommend it).

If she's on one airline (LH?) they should get her on next available flight if there's a problem.

Gates/terminals can be far apart, but the signage is good and should be easy to follow - just tell her not to dilly dally.

JoanneH

I used Frankfurt last year and I have told her she will have be on top of it but you know "Moms never knows anything" I am forwarding your response to her. I also feel its cutting it close and yes she is on LF all the way as I told her worse case she spends the night in FR on her return (her flight out is last one of day) and ends up on later flight to Venice. This is her first trip on her own, thanks for your input

landineen

If she is checking in bags at Dulles with the final destination Venice, she will not collect her bags at Frankfurt as she will only go through passport control.

On the return, our flight from Rome to Dulles via Frankfurt this past spring, we had 20 minutes. The sign for connecting to Dulles above the jetway as we departed the aircraft pointed us in the wrong direction. Check the main departure boards and she should be fine. Also, the flights departing back to the USA from Frankfurt are up the escalator and again through passport control.

ms_go

She'll definitely have to go through passport control and security in both directions. My last time through, in March, we went through security twice, but I think that's because we went out of the way to get to the United lounge. I walked by one immigration/security line (near the B gates) that was quite long and used another with no line (near C). In March, there seemed to be quite a bit of construction going on in Terminal 1. And, she should be prepared for the fact that one or more of her flights may park at a remote stand and use a bus to/from the terminal. If she misses a connection, there are LH transfer desks around the terminal that can assist in rebooking.

dfr4848

Joanne - <Moms never know anything>

How true! Our daughter (in college) has gone overseas 4 times on her own. Sept will be #5 when she goes to Greece to study for fall semester. And woe be to either parental unit that tries to provide advice!

The comment about checking and rechecking departure boards is good - gate numbers can change.

JoanneH

Hee Hee I am sending her all these with a secret smile <G>

Cowboy1968

65 minutes is normal in FRA for almost any kind of connections.
Frankfurt is usually quite busy during the morning hours when most flights from the US arrive, but that also affects all other flights. So if the flight from Dulles should be late due to heavy traffic, chances are near 100% that also the plane supposed to go to Venice will spend some time in holding over FRA.

Domestic and intra-European flights of LH usually rely on very tight rotation schedules, so very few flights actually board at the time given on the boarding pass (usually that is the time when the plane will just have arrived at the jetway from its prior flight).

By the way.. when I have to proceed through passport control, I often have non-EU nationals in my line (either accidentely or on purpose, I don't know). So far, I have never seen one immigration officer raise an eyebrow for using the "wrong" (usually shorter) EU citizen line.

rhy

I had to go through Frankfurt this past May (Madrid - Frankfurt-Dulles). I had about an hour and a half time between planes and I barely made it. Passport control to get on the United flight to Dulles was very long and only had 1 or 2 people working. It took me a good 45 minutes to get through that. My only hope was that since my bags were on the flight, they would have to offload them if I was still stuck in line and the departure would be delayed.