Changing planes in Frankfurt for Prague on Sept 7, 2015

BobAuerbach

My wife and I are on the Sept 9th Blue Danube River Cruise leaving from Prague. We are flying from San Francisco to Frankfurt and then to Prague. Both flights are on Lufthansa. We arrive on Monday, Sept 7th at 10:50am and our flight to Prague is at 12:20pm giving us about 1hr 30 minutes to navigate the Frankfurt Airport. The flight from San Francisco is on an A380 which carries about 516 passengers so I expect unloading the plane to be slow. I have been reading as much as I can about Frankfurt and the airport seems very large and complicated to navigate. I would appreciate any help and tips anyone can recommend for navigating the airport. Thanks very much.

British

While I can't give you tips about the airport specifically, apart from the fact that yes it is huge but it's about 35 years since I last was in the airport, you could look up the same flights for the next few days to see if they arrive and depart from the same terminal. That should save time. In addition, in theory Lufthansa should not really have put you on the second flight if it was not Do-able. Go on line and see if there is another flight that leaves for Prague a little later that day, then if your first flight arrives late there is a good chance they will put you on that flight. if that happens, remember to have the Tauck number available in the paperwork that you can call so Tauck will be aware you are arriving on a later flight and they can inform the person who will be collecting you from the airport. When the plane lands make sure when you get off the plane that you march quickly to head to the front of the pack to get to your next gate, you may also have to go through security or passport control too, you need to be at the front of the line.
Wear shoes that you will be able to run fast in through the terminal. Make sure your carry on bag is easy to run with. Make sure you have at least one extra set of clothing in your carry on bag and all your valuables. We arrived late at one terminal, we made the flights and our bags did not, it was deemed that we would never make the flight so they did not bother to put the bags on, we followed all the tips I have mentioned so easily got to the gate. But we waited 24 hours for our bags to arrive.
Finally, if Tauck booked your flights and they have not yet been ticketed, ( I think that is unlikely looking at your dates, but it might help someone else) they may well be able to change your flights without penalty. But usually Tauck will tell you before you chose your flights if they think the time between flights is going to be too tight a connection time. Good luck!

jdurkin

Hi Bob,

I have often transited through Frankfurt and the best advice I can give you is that you need all the time you can get to actually do it. I know Lufthansa is very efficient at doing its part, but the problems I always encounter are the huge size of the terminal and the various levels of internal security. It all has to do with the Schengen Area and the immigration rules within it. You will be arriving in and transferring within the area, so you may be spared a level of security lines and hand luggage scanning. That will save time. But I agree wholeheartedly with British. It is a HUGE terminal and it is VERY nerve wracking to get through it. Please try and give yourself more time at Frankfurt. My minimum comfort zone is 2 hours and then that's running. I usually find that it takes me an hour to find where I have to go and another hour to actually get there. Staff are very helpful and naturally they all speak English! But it's just a Very Big and Very Busy place.

These days, if I can, I plan my trips through Munich. It's smaller and easier to navigate through.

Cheers,

Jan

RJS666

Double check your arrival time, because the schedule I'm looking at shows that 10:50 AM is the latest that flight has arrived in the past month. Lufthansa is pretty good about not letting you book a connection that doesn't allow reasonable time between flights.
The length of time to get to your flight depends in part on where you are sitting - First and Business tend to get out faster than coach. As said before, check the week of your flight to see which LH 455 is landing and which gate 1396 is departing. Alert the purser on your flight as to your concern and ask for advise and help as to what to do when landing. For instance, they can alert 1396 that you are on your way.
There is a 4 pm flight, so if everything go wrong move fast to get on that one.

smarks50

Also, keep in mind that "arrival time" can mean the time the plane lands; it can take another 20 - 30 minutes to arrive at the gate and begin disembarkation, especially in Frankfurt.