Flight connections at Frankfurt

MothballsWallet

Hi folks, I've booked my wife on a flight from Moscow to Birmingham with a change at Frankfurt with a 45 minute connection in Frankfurt.

I've checked with Lufthansa and they've told me that:

• 45 minutes is the minimum connection time for Frankfurt
• If her inbound flight's delayed, they'll automatically book her onto the next available flight
• If she's delayed coming through the airport, then it's up to the staff on the day whether they'll do that for her

I'm going to ask Lufthansa about changing her booking to put her onto the next flight from Frankfurt to Birmingham which gives her an extra 5 hours to connect.

So, I was wondering if any of you on this board have experience of changing flights in Frankfurt at all?

Caz3121

MothballsWallet wrote: »

I'm going to ask Lufthansa about changing her booking to put her onto the next flight from Frankfurt to Birmingham which gives her an extra 5 hours to connect.

Does she have a flexible (expensive) ticket. If not the change could be quite costly with change fees/fare difference. I have travelled through FRA but not on a short connection but it is a fairly efficient airport

eDicky

I assume that both flights are with Lufthansa. It's been about ten years since I last transited at FRA. These are some relevant consideration:

Two non-Schengen Lufthansa flights will probably dock at the same terminal, and likely not too far apart from each other. There should be no need to pass immigration, but there might be a security check. Perhaps you can confirm these points with them.

Airlines usually give a scheduled arrival time that is a bit later than when they normally would arrive, in order to still be 'on time' if a delay occurs. So if the flight from Moscow departs on time it can arrive ten minutes or more 'early' and add this to her available transit time.

She will no doubt be issued with boarding passes for both flights at Moscow check-in (or receive both electronically if that's possible), so she can head for the departure gate for the Birmingham flight right away, there will be clear indicator boards to show which one on entering the terminal.

In general everything works very calmly and efficiently in a German airport. Boarding gates are not closed until the last moment, arriving there ten or even five minutes before departure time is not necessarily too late. The worst danger is an encounter with the archetypal German !!!!! female airport staff member, but unless she is unfortunate I would think your wife will make this connection ok.