Frankfurt Airport (FRA) recently opened its new Terminal 3. This is something I was excited about. Frankfurt is the international airport I visit most, since my family is from the area, so it’s one I have a love-hate relationship with. [...]
This discussion thread is connected to our post: I Flew Out Of The New Frankfurt Airport Terminal 3: Don’t Get Too Excited.
I arrived at T3 on Cathay Pacific 22nd July and was looking forward to this. Brand new terminal, billions of Euro investment and 11 years construction time, this must be awesome. Mhmm - No!! What a huge disappointment this was.
Once off the plane, there were no automated walkways. We had to walk all the way to immigration. Then there was a 2.5 to 3 hour line at immigration for non EU citizens. Fine with me as I walked past all that with my German passport. I was through in no time. Lucky me...I thought.....but then: Collecting luggage was taking for ever, as many non EU passengers were stuck in the long immigration line and their luggage was blocking the carousel. It took more than 30 minutes before some workers took luggage off the belt so that new luggage could come out. Serious?? In a first world country?? Did you not anticipate this before hand and plan accordingly?? Then, getting to the Sky Train was easy would it not be for a strategically placed revolving door on the small bridge to the Sky Train station. Way too small for people with more than one suitcase to get through, let alone people with children, prams etc.. A revolving door?? Which engineer had that brilliant idea?? All in all a very bad design, very bad organisation, very bad planning of traffic flow. Departing from T3 was not that bad. My only complain would be, that it is functional but not inviting. It feels sterile.
Not enough proper restaurants where you could sit down and have a meal for example.
Summary: Someone in charge of T3 design should have visited Changi Singapore Airport to see how airport design and operation is done properly!!