Frankfurt Main Airport

Not Verified | I fly in to Frankfurt airport every year and each time I forget how poor T2 is. It is frustrating in every sense, signage is OK but everything just doesn't gel. Airside is the worst and feels grey, dirty and sadly lacking. For a major global airport this place just doesn't cut it. Food options are poor and the whole place just feels drab. The staff are a mixed bunch from happy to just miserable. Please do something about this place, it really is an airport I hate traveling from.

✅ Trip Verified | Complete shambles and lack of intelligence! I am regular traveller to Frankfurt and the Terminal 2 security is complete shambles. It is one of the slowest security lines I have ever been through (took me 30 mins today) and they never seem to look at improving it. The airport is designed as a hub hence each set of gates (3 or 4) have a separate security check. In principle this is supposed to facilitate easy flight changes and also speed up things as you do not contend for time with other flights but they only open one or sometimes two lines hence it takes ages to get through. Even the one line could be speeded up by just having more than one passenger load the trays at one time but even that seems to be too much for them. Not only that but they have strange rules - I told them up front that my shoes will be a problem so can I put them through the scanner but they won’t accept that. So after passsing though the Jody scanner I have to go trough a pat down and gues what, my shoes are put through the scanner as I had suggested originally. This happens every time! Of course they are slow and inefficient. I am sorry but they give German efficiency an extraordinary bad name!

✅ Trip Verified | I flew from Cancun (Mexico) to Frankfurt LH 515 on 29/1/19 and connection to Verona (Italy) LH 9508 on 30/1/19. First time in Frankfurt but travelled for over 40 years in the whole world, and it will be the last for sure. I had a very unpleasant experience with your “security” staff. They behaved very badly and roughly and when I let them notice that, they say ‘it’s like that in Germany”. Try to look how it works in the other countries. A ridiculous fuss with small liquid bottles, tooth paste and eye drops and they seized the duty free items I bought in Cancun (with original plastic bag and receipt ticket indicating clearly the item)! They said it’s the international rule: but it is not! This is not security, it’s robbery. First time in 40 years travels. Moreover, it was very slow and I don’t know if they were in some kind of a strike movement (when I left, on 15/01/19 they were on strike), it was like they were causing delays on purpose. The worst airport experience ever had, and this is unfortunate because the local main airline is good but I will never flight with it again. To avoid it if it's possible.

✅ Trip Verified | I have never been so humiliated by the security staff at this airport. In all my years of travelling for business Ive never been subjected to this much scrutiny at the security checks. My bag was selected after coming through the X-ray machine and the person who carried out the checks proceeded to empty the entire contents of my hand carry bag. Is this correct protocol to carry this out and not even give an explanation as to why you want to dump everything out of the bag and into a separate tray. I was absolutely livid at the shear ignorance of the employee. If there is some kind of internal dispute then does the person travelling have to be subjected to this type of treatment.

✅ Trip Verified | Utterly disorganized and chaotic security lines. Security staff at scanners are plentiful (6 or 7 per machine) but either the x-ray machines are broken and only running at 10% speed - or the staff are deliberately causing delays in some weird strike motif. Count on at least 1 hour of queing when flying from this airport - or start avoiding it like I will.

✅ Trip Verified | I use FRA airport quite frequently, and even now on occasion get confused in finding my way, especially when in transfer. How can an airport such as this get simple signs so wrong? A few years ago things were improving but now its slipped back.

Not Verified | Worst transfer I have made in Europe. Going from one European country to another (Croatia to Sweden) you have to show the passport several Times and then not at the gate. The security check on flights within Europe is ridiculous. Cumbersome and redundant.

Not Verified | Transited through the airport to EWR. Despite a relatively short connecting time of effectively 45 min it went all smooth. Arriving at concourse B and departing from concourse Z. Clear signage. Very quick security and passport checks, polite staff. Even time for grabbing a coffee. Very clean facilities. The rather hefty complaints here are not comprehensible for me. Some comments, e.g. those regarding security checks, also indicate that reviewers are not aware of European legislation.

✅ Trip Verified | Hilariously inefficient security checkpoints. Wastes everybody’s time by making you take out all liquids and electronics. Liquids smaller than 3.4 fl oz included. First time I’ve seen that. Same goes for electronics, doesn’t matter how small it is. Forgot to take an electronic or liquid out? Your entire bag gets emptied and all your stuff is thrown into a disorganized pile and handed back to you after they bomb test anything that they feel like needs to be tested. They hand your stuff back to you and throw a complimentary snarky comment on top of it. The restaurant variety sucks as well. Just sandwich shops. At least the seats in the terminal don’t have armbars so you can lay down. Work stations provide power outlets.

Not Verified | My experience at this airport was horrible. My family and I were in transit from Oslo to Frankfurt, then Houston. Our flight from Oslo had already departed late (without any prior notice given), so we were in kind of a rush. Upon reaching one of the checkpoints, we saw that there was almost no one in front of us, so we snaked quickly through the line. At one point, I ducked underneath one of the cloth belts (the ones they use with metal poles to divide up the lines) to get to the booths more quickly and hardly realized that one of these cloth dividers had come loose. As I reached the end, one of the employees in the booths, a young man in maybe his late twenties, yelled to me. When I turned to him, he yelled, "Why didn't you listen? Close it!" I genuinely hadn't heard him, so I apologized. However, I couldn't understand what he was asking me to do. My family and I really needed to get to our gate, so I asked, a little roughly, if I could please just go through. My family and I were all very jetlagged and just plain exhausted. The guard yelled at me, "Go close it!" and I realized, finally, that he was referring to the cloth belt that had come undone. His request, if I might add, was a little ridiculous. There were few people behind us (our flight was in the morning) and we really needed to get to our gate. He made me go all the way over to where the cloth belt had come loose and, pointing at it, said, "Close it!" I did, all while other travelers and employees watched and did nothing. I said to him, "Please, sir, my family is waiting for me," but he refused to let me go through until I completed this task. When I was back at the booth, the man took his sweet time looking through my passport and then proceeded to ask if one of my stamps (from May 2018) indicated my last port of entry into Europe. While I do have a lot of stamps, even a quick look at my passport would indicate that I had entered the country just earlier in December. The other stamp was from a previous trip and my return to the United States (my native country) was clearly indicated. After stamping my passport, he handed it to me and said, "Next time, you don't do what I say, you're gonna get in trouble." Yes, I understand that I need to obey airport employees. However, I tried to be respectful toward this man, ask for clarification after genuinely not hearing him, and he was completely disrespectful, humiliating me and almost making me miss my flight. When I finally did get to my gate, there were multiple lines to get onboard the flight, all kind of intertwined with one another and just a big mess. All the while, none of the airport employees gave us proper directions or more information about what was going on with our flight. That flight left slightly late, too. Back in 2016, I was in transit in Frankfurt and actually had a pleasant experience. However, my experience this past month, in particular with the aforementioned employee, was so humiliating that I will make an effort, the next time I am transiting through a European airport, to avoid this one at all costs.