Which Railway Station at Frankfurt Airport?
 

I'm planning a trip where I will be departing Germany via plane in Frankfurt. In checking the Deutsche Bahn website, I see that trains headed to the airport stop at Flughafen Regionalbahnhof and/or Fernbahnhof. If I were taking a United or Lufthansa flight, which station at the airport would I be using to enter the terminal?

Also, which of these towns has the easiest connection to the airport: Wiesbaden, Mainz or Darmstadt? Unless I have an extremely early morning flight, I'd rather stay in one of these on my last night than at an airport hotel.

Thank you!

The station is not determined by your airline, it is determined by the type of train you arrive in--local or long-distance (Fernbahnhof). Both stations are at Terminal 1, with bus and skyline connections to Terminal 2.

http://www.frankfurt-airport.de/b2c/...area=homepage#

Long distance trains will be shown to use Flughafen Fern, while the S-bahn from Frankfurt will be shown to arrive at Flughafen Regional. They should be the same station at the airport.

You can look up the trains at the Bahn website for all those three towns to see which one has the most trains and take the shortest time.

Wiesbaden is every 15 minutes, joruney time 32-40 minutes. Mainz is every 8-10 minutes, journey time 20-28 minutes. No direct trains from Darmstadt - either a train connection in Frankfurt, or a direct bus service every 30 minutes, journey time 24 minutes. So, Mainz should be the best choice of those three.

Frankfurt Airport Regional is in the 'basement' of terminal 1, and only local trains arrive/depart here, ie, the S-Bahn to/from Frankfurt downtown, Mainz & Wiesbaden. Frankfurt Airport Fern is connected to T1 by a walkway type thing, and all long-distance trains arrive here (ie, from Cologne, Mannheim, etc.).

Thank you everyone for the very helpful replies. I really appreciate it!

dovima: I don't know anything about Darmstadt but can attest that both Mainz and Wiesbaden are great overnight cities with equally easy rail access to Frankfurt airport. Although the trip to the airport from Wiesbaden takes a few minutes longer than does the trip from Mainz, it is my feeling that Wiesbaden is a much nicer spot. It is a really elegant and refined spa town with great cafes, parks, shops in which to browse and restaurants and, overall, a very pleasant place to spend a final night in Germany. If you can arrange a late enough departure time from Frankfurt, I'd first choose Wiesbaden, and then Mainz, over an airport hotel anytime! As I recall from my most recent visit last year, the train trip from Wiesbaden to Frankfurt airport is about 35 to 40 minutes. Same trip from Mainz is around 30 to 35 minutes. Either way, have a good trip and, as RufusTFirefly advised, don't worry about whether you arrive at the Regionalbahnhof or the Fernbahnhof as they are both located adjacent to one another in Terminal 1.

Danke schon, David.
Wiesbaden did sound very nice from the descriptions I've heard. I would much rather spend my last afternoon and evening strolling the Kurpark and having coffee in a gemutlich cafe than holed up in a chain hotel at the airport!

We spent a last afternoon and evening in Mainz last summer before a flight out of Frankfurt. It was a nice place to be. I haven't been to Wiesbaden, so perhaps that is better, but Mainz is also totally acceptable and better than an airport hotel.

Dovima-The Kurpark partic. on a summer evening ist sehr schon!-preferable to Mainz by far. Have an erdbeertorte for me!