I lived in Frankfurt for more than a year. I worked at Frankfurt Airport. On most weekends, I flew in and out of Frankfurt Airport. But for the first time ever, I flew out of the C Gates of Frankfurt Airport Terminal 1, which requires a marathon-like distance to meander your way through the labyrinth.
A Labyrinthal Marathon To Frankfurt Airport C Gates
My Eurowings Discover flight to Mombasa, Kenya departed from the C Gates. Little did I know, after arriving from Munich in the A Gates area of Terminal 1, how far a walk was ahead of me.
Firstly, you need to prepare yourself for a long and desolate walk. You may think I’m exaggerating, but I am not. If you thought the A Gates or Z Gates were massive, they are, but the C Gates are different. Walking to them is like waking through the wilderness.
As you leave the bustling Terminal 1 lobby, you’ll first come to passport control, which is no different than any other part of the terminal.
Next comes a duty free area and the first of many long hallways, this one with a flight of stairs as well.
But walk past that and you enter a long hall from which you have to strain your eyes to see the end. There were chairs, but no people sitting on them. No shops. No noise. It was dead silent.
And after that long walk, you might think you’ll reach the gate area, but then comes an even longer trek ahead…
More stone floors. More fluorescent light. A few chairs under each window. No noise. You can hear a pin drop.
Presently, I came to a smoking booth with a sign saying, “Last chance to have a smoke before you board your flight.” It’s like the Prada Marfa. There it is in the middle of the void.
The walk continued. Finally, I reached the gate area, which sprung up an oasis in the desert like a Primm, Nevada or Blythe, California.
First a security checkpoint. Empty, of course.
There was some life here, but not much.
It’s why I like to live in cities…and fly out of other terminals in Frankfurt.
Did you get to visit the lounges? Imagine they must’ve been a pleasure given how empty they were!
Aren’t the C gates just below the D gates – isn’t the walk from the same point to the D gates just as long? Maybe more people, etc.
Well, to add some content here…
If you look on Google Maps (you need to go in the satelite view), you will see, that Councourse C is a kind of “Y” (150° rightwards tilt) where the lower part is connected to the Main Terminal 1 (where the passpor controle happens / behind the main door #8 at the most western part of Terminal 1).
The upper left end of the “Y” is connected to Terminal 2 (around last gate C16/17/18/19/20) and Terminal 2, gate D17 onwards).
The other end of the “Y” only has 5 gates (C4 to C8), while the Concourse building only covers the first 3 gates, so a short dead end.
On the map you can clearly see that C4 to C8 are direct with gangways connected to the planes, while the looooong walkway to the gates C13 onwards is about 80 m up north. In between there is a parking lot for containers, trolleys, etc.
The Councourse C13-C20 is called “C/D-Riegel and was mainly build for LHs A380 operations and includes Lounges where you board directly from the (Upstairs) Lounge into the Upperdeck of the A380. This happend back in 2008.
However later in time, in October 2012, the so called Concourse A-Plus opened at Frankfurt, this is new westward Concourse of Terminal 1 with the gates A/Z50 to A/Z 69. Many A380 OPS moved there.
With Eurowings Discovery coming around, a lot of their flights are leaving there, I recently flow from there to PHL.
To my knowledge, on the longer run, the idea is to build a proper Concourse starting at the main Terminal 1 (behind the Security)
along the area where today gates C4 to C8 are connecting with C13.
Back before Covid Lufthansa always put the nightly flights to Sao Paulo, Buenos Aires, and Rio de Janeiro from those gates. EVery night without fail. The whole C concourse at FRA is weird. You have those gates. But then, closer to terminal 1, you have a series of weird gates, half of which are ground level but then you board from a jetbridge, the other part are at the same level as ticketing. It’s a weirdly constructed, non-connected concourse, for sure.
Is there no shuttle or train system to Concourse C?
@Aaron,
I believe there is a train between A/Z and C. If memory serves me correctly, the train departure from A/Z is before the security checkpoint. Instead of going through security, you head off to the right and board the train for C gates. I haven’t flown out of the C gates for quite some time, so I can only speculatively remember that the train drops you off around the security checkpoint. I used to live/work in Riyadh and without fail, my flight from America would land in the Z gates and my flight to Riyadh would depart the C gates.
No, you only have the Skytrain from Terminal 1 A/Z 15 to the other end of Terminal 1, round door5/6 and to/from Terminal 2 (and in the future to T3 with a different train).
There is also a bus shuttle between T1 to T2.
There is a tunnel (with a moving walkway) between Terminal 1 Concourse A15 to B 13 (all for Shengen Pax only).
I just had a look at the FRA website. I wasn’t crazy, there is a stop for C gates:
The stops are located in:
Terminal 1, A/Z (transit area)
Terminal 1, B/C (access via departure hall B on level 2)
Terminal 1, C (transit area)
Terminal 2, D/E (access via Shopping Plaza on level 3)
Unless the FRA website hasn’t been updated? Like I said, I haven’t flown from the C gates for quite some time. I only recently connected in FRA and only had to take the bus to the B gates.
Never flown from the C gates myself, but have taken the train transfer between A/Z and B gates many times before.
Great meeing you this past weekend, Matt!
Take about a walk is terminal E at Zurich airport. Got my exercise for the day!!
My wife and I used to the live in Munich. We had a Condor flight from FRA-LAS on a separate ticket. So we bought a one-way from MUC-FRA in the morning, leaving what we thought was plenty of time to make our connection. As LH luck would have it, our flight was delayed from MUC and we still had to get our get our bags and check them in with Condor. We accidentally took the wrong path and left the secure area before getting our bag. We didn’t have enough time to clear security again to get to baggage claim properly, so we just walked in through the exit, set off alarms etc. I didn’t care at that point as we needed to get our bags. Again, our bags were delayed coming off the plane, so we had to wait even longer for that. We finally got our bags and were able to run to the check-in desk right at the hour cutoff for checking bags.
We then had to clear immigration and since I’m American and my wife is British, at the time, she could use the automatic gates, but USA could not. Of course, the line was extremely long for the Non-EU passport. So I just started cutting through everyone, just saying sorry every line I cut. Made it through and we had the long run to the C gates because that’s where Condor operated out of. We got to the gate right as boarding was meant to start and wouldn’t you know, our flight was delayed lol. Figures.
Luckily, we were able to just fly back direct LAS-MUC and not have to worry about connecting through FRA.
I’m all for exercise and enjoy walking, especially when I was younger but now that I’m older and have had some foot injuries that never healed properly, walks like that are tough and make me reconsider traveling. Too bad they can’t do something like mini-shuttles to make the walk shorter.
Yes this was my initial thought, too: seniors. Unfortunate that they are removing moving walkways in other airports, too. I guess consumers will need to start providing more feedback about infra design. For all the talk of equality elsewhere it would be nice to have multiple mobility options.
We connected a few years ago at Heathrow. I vowed never again. Ever. Jammed bus from the tarmac. Then up a dark stairway, through a dark hallway, down stairs, confusing signs, down a dark stairway. Very long walk. Then nearly a strip search at security by a guy who seemed to enjoy our near panic trying to catch our flight back to the US.
So we’re connecting through FRA in a few weeks on our way to and home from Prague and I read about the FRA experience. It’s Z to A and we have a couple of hours on our trip there so I’m not too worried. But — we have 1 hour and 20 minute connection on the return trip, A transferring to Z gates. Our mid-morning Prague to FRA flight is notoriously late, often a half hour late. Can’t imagine trying to make the United flight to ORD in such a short time. (I’m too old to run.) Yesterday I pulled the trigger and called United. I talked with a delightful agent who changed our flight and we now have a 2 1/2-hour FRA connection and are flying to Houston instead of Chicago and onto DSM from there. Already looking forward to the bloody Mary on the 777 biz class. It’s 11 hours FRA to Houston. Maybe two bloody Marys.
@Matthew
It used to be possible to enter at T2 and walk from there to the C13-20 gates of T1 as the buildings are connected. I did this a couple of times prior to the pandemic. Don’t know if it still works.
I flew out of Terminal C last month on Eurowings Discover J FRA-PHL (operated by Finnair, surprisingly good soft/hard product – you should review!) The people mover was closed when I was there so I first had to take a bus to transit terminals, and then walk the whole distance Matthew described. Definitely a loooong walk, but just count the steps ;), There’s a LH Bistro lounge right above the C gates which is nice to relax at if you can transit fast enough.
Unfortunately the times of the Finnair A350 on wetlease for Eurowings Discover are over, I flew end of March to PHL as well, and this was the last week Finnair was doing the wetlease for them.
Frankfurt airport certainly has some quirks. Among them are the lack of a train system between some pretty far flung locations. Also, I flew FRA-CLT in business on AA yesterday and was only offered a Priority Pass lounge before security rather than airside. Then again, for some crazy reason there were 4 gates with their own security screening, which is nuts.
Definitely not good for seniors and people with disabilities…I thought Germany was more advanced to accommodate people like that…Reminds me of a terminal terminator apocalypse where there’s no people and robots take over…
Did it once and never again. Connect usually through Munich now and try to avoid Frankfurt as much as possible. Much better.
For me the experience was identical, until I got to security, which was an absolute zoo. Incredibly long long line, to which they responded by closing 2 of the 3 security lanes and leaving only 1 open. It was maddening, passengers were all very frazzled.
What do you estimate in Time that it took you to get from A Hall to C Hall? It looks like you went through the auto passport control for Europeans, how about time for USA citizens to do the walk?
It took me 15 minutes and I walked fast. Give yourself 20-25 minutes unless you really enjoy rapid walking.
I just transferred today, and getting to gate A is a breeze with the skytrain. Here’s a quick guide:
– For gates higher than A14, follow signs for C and Z when you exit the plane.
– At gate A15, you’ll find passport control for Z gates on the left.
– Pass through passport control, head upstairs to Z gates.
– When upstairs, follow the C signs again to reach the skytrain (A/Z stop). There won’t be a specific skytrain sign along the way.
– Get off at the second stop (labeled C gates), then follow the C gate signs.
– You’ll reach C near the smoking area just before the security point.
Wishing you a fantastic trip!
Sitting at Gare Z50 in Frankfurt Terminal 1, Dec. 2, ’24.
Of course safety is #1, but this is a strange place. Only 1 eating/drinking area, understaffed w/1 credit card machine for 20+tables, LONG lines at same establishment for coffee, etc.
Our very pleasant server quit. Walked out.
I was later told she came 4 hrs. late & left. Took me an entertaining 15 mins. at counter to pay.
This Terminal needs more eateries/bars.
No one bought a luxury Picard handbag during our morning visit–use that space to serve drinks & food! It will be a money-maker.