New, Terminal 3 at Frankfurt Airport

Posted by Ms. Jo (Frankfurt, Germany) on 03/12/26 03:39 PM

The new terminal is supposed to open on 22/23 April so they are doing test runs now with fake passengers.
The video is in German, but you can at least get a glimpse of it. Because this has been in planning for 2 years, the tickets that many people had, said they were going to Dubai. Pretty sure the airport thought that was a safe destination to plan on.
They will do another test run with more airlines and more passengers soon.

https://www.hessenschau.de/tv-sendung/terminal-3-im-testbetrieb,container-beitrag-38836.html

Posted by Mark

Schwerin

03/12/26 04:02 PM

4569 posts

This thread contains a link to more info about new terminal 3:
https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/transportation/frankfurt-terminal-3-opening-planned-for-april-2026

The tests remember to the ones from BER a few years ago.

Posted by CL

Salem, Oregon, USA

03/12/26 07:30 PM

3821 posts

I'm hopeful the new terminal will make Frankfurt more appealing (to me) for transfers in the future. I got to participate i the test run for my local airport (Portland, OR/PDX) before it opened and it was actually a lot of fun! They had a similar amount of fake bags for people to haul around but both scenarios I tested were carry on only.

Posted by Going234

03/13/26 10:14 PM

1008 posts

Terminal 3 is located on the south side of the runways on the site of a former U.S. air base.

On 23 December 1999, the U.S. and German governments agreed to close the base.
Subsequently, the Frankfurt Airport Authority leveled the entire base, and in October 2015, commenced building what would become a third passenger terminal (Terminal 3) and other airport facilities.
In 2019, it became known that excavated soil from the construction site for Terminal 3 was contaminated with PFAS chemicals with the volume of polluted soil being approximately 600,000 cubic metres. It was considered highly probable that the contamination originated with firefighting foams which had been used by USAFE, primarily for training purposes

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhein-Main_Air_Base