Frankfurt or Rome: Which airport is better for a connection?
 

Hi,

I am usually fortunate to travel nonstop from point A to point B, however this summer need to fly back to Newark (EWR) from Venice with a connection. The two options I am considering are either Alitalia from Venice to Rome (FCO), with 1 hr 45 mins to connect with a Continental flight, the other is Lufthansa from Venice to Frankfurt with 1 hr 20 mins to connect with another Lufthansa flight at the same terminal.

The other connection options require a very early departure from Venice and I'm trying to avoid that. Question for anybody with experience/ knowledge, is one better than the other or are both equally bad and I am setting myself up for almost certain failure?

Thanks!

I'd take LH via FRA.

Just a suggestion, have you thought of flying into Venice and out of whatever city is your first stop? I did this since alot of flight departures from Venice were very very early in the morning.

My choice would be the Frankfurt connection.....I think it is a more user friendly airport than Rome, it is a shorter flight back to NJ by at least an hour, and in my opinion Lufthansa is a very good airline.

Mike

Lufthansa to Frankfurt. Much better airline than Alitalia, and Frankfurt airport is considerably better organized IMO than Rome.

I take FRA.

While FRA is a large airport, it is efficient especially for LH-LH connections.

Additionally, I take LH+LH connection over any similar itinerary that includes AL.

Look up posting on Alitalia in this forum to find out what others think about Alitalia.

Thanks, I am leaning to that as well.

Unfortunately, I can't change the order for this trip. Venice is the disembarkation port for my cruise. I am also considering training to Milan or Rome, spending one night and then flying nonstop to EWR.

Generally speaking I'd say Frankfurt, but I think it depends more on your airline and simple luck on that day. We had a horrible trip home last year from Venice via Frankfurt to LAX that took more than 24 hours. I blame Lufthansa because of the cancelled flight FRA-LAX due to lack of flight crew (inexcusable IMO, especially since the flight originated in Frankfurt), but United was forced to compensate us with vouchers because we were flying on their FF miles.

FYI, the published minimum connecting time in Frankfurt is 45 for all flights. At Rome, from a domestic to an international flight, it's 60 minutes.

Have you considered Lufthansa Venice-Munich-Newark? Currently, there is a daily Lufthansa flight VCE-MUC departing 12:45 p.m., arriving 1:50 p.m., and a daily Lufthansa flight MUC-EWR departing 3:15 p.m., arriving 6:40 p.m. Depending on the day of the week, there is an earlier departure from Venice that would allow you to connect in Munich to a flight to JFK. The published minimum connecting time in Munich is 30 minutes.

I've heard enough stories about Alitalia that I probably wouldn't choose it when there are other options.

Thanks Jean, I will also look at that MUC option, was not aware of it.

We connected through Frankfurt on our trip home from Venice in November, and it worked well. We booked through Continental. They do codeshare with Lufthansa, so we were on a Lufthansa flight that left Venice at 10am. This allowed us to leave our hotel near San Marco at a relatively sane hour, take the Vaporetto to the bus station, and get to the airport in plenty of time. The connection in Frankfurt was relatively painless. As I have experienced before when connecting in that airport, one has to go up, down and around, but its clean, modern and well signed. The wonderful and unexpected benefit for us, was that the Continental flight direct to Houston was practically empty. We each had our own row!

I'll be the nay-sayer. I'd rather cap my own teeth with copper pennies than to fly through Frankfurt. I absolutely hate that airport. Almost as much as Chicago.

My vote is for FRA or MUC.

After being in many airports, I have to say that the Frankfurt airport is the most efficient of all of them. If you have a layover, there is plenty to do, the city is easy to get to quickly and at a low cost and the security seems to be efficient and no-nonsense too. It may be huge, but flights are not only almost always on time but tend to land early if you are coming from the states. Whats not to like about that?

Thank you for all the replies.

Nancy,

Do you remember how much connection time you had in Frankfurt?

Dave,

ok, you have piqued my curiosity... could you elaborate why?

Thanks!

Having just flown IAD to Venice through CDG and back, I have to say we're leaning toward doing something like IAD to Milan and taking the train to Venice in the future. Our connections worked fine, but changing planes and worrying about late flights stressed me out. Plus with the complicated and ever-changing carry-on rules, you generally have to check bags so there is a greater chance of delayed baggage when you are changing planes.

I agree with you regarding the stress level, specially now with security procedures taking more and more time. The only reason I am remotely considering this connection is that it is at the end of our trip. So the worse that can happen is that if we miss our connection we will be inconvenienced having to stay in Frankfurt overnight (assuming they can put us in one of their two flights to EWR the next day).

Am I right in assuming that if I miss connection because the Venice flight is late Lufthansa has to cover the hotel expenses?

No idea. You might check the Lufthansa Web site.

Agree with others that you should go with FRA over FCO.

One question, though. You say you need to fly back to EWR. Would JFK work? Delta flies non-stop from JFK to Venice. During the winter, it is only 4 or 5 times per week, but I believe it goes daily during the summer.

Outbound: Delta 0186 7:15pm JFK 10:05am VCE Boeing 767 08:50
Inbound: Delta 0187 12:05pm VCE 3:39pm JFK Boeing 767 09:34

Thanks Travelgourmet. Unfortunately our FF program is with Continental which is now part of the Star Alliance. Delta is part of Skyteam which was our alliance until late last year. So if we were to take Delta we would be throwing away all those miles. It's too bad as the Delta flight, even if it was to Kennedy, would have been the perfect one.

I understand about the miles. In that case, I would probably stick with Lufthansa and connect via either FRA or MUC.

Are you kidding?
FRA is much better than FCO, and the only reason you may prefer to transit in Rome is due to the weather conditions if you're traveling during winter time (wich is not your case).