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If you are traveling ATH - FRA to connect home, read this

Our trip home from Greece was our own Odyssey (sorry, could not resist). As I posted here in June, the summer flight situation derailed tour trip (3 hour 39 min delay from ATH to FRA, missed connection to ORD) and we spent an unexpected night in FRA with a lot (hundreds) of other travelers.

We submitted applications to Lufthansa by mid-June for the EU compensation as well as a refund on the lower class of fare on the FRA - ORD leg (we were booked in Economy Plus, spent the flight in Economy). We received a record locator that day. Since then, crickets. I assume the sheer volume of delays created a backlog at LH, but has anyone received payment?

Finally, because I have gotten so much good traveler advice on this website, passing this along: IF you are traveling ATH to FRA to connect home to the US, if you are on LH1279 d. 1:55 p.m. ATH to FRA I would recommend you have a long (at least three hour IMO) connection time in FRA to account for delays. In addition to the fact it is a large airport, I keep checking that flight and it seems late, many times over an hour, almost every day (I use Flight Stats, on time performance chart). Or use FlightStats or another service to look up the one time record for your own flights. Just a tip to fellow travelers in hopes of helping avoid the issues we encountered.

Posted by
153 posts

I have an ATH - MUC on Lufthansa flight, it looks like on-time performance is 43% yikes. Although the average delay of 25 mins is better than 92% of airlines

Posted by
20 posts

We are flying home from Athens through CDG on Air France. Our layover is only an hour and 40 minutes in September. Should we be concerned or is it only Lufthansa that’s an issue?

Posted by
310 posts

Hi, I might post in the France or general travel section on that one. Or just Google "Summer Travel Chaos" and read what comes up (it is a lot, may have updates about CDG).

The idea is to be prepared, I rely on Rick Steves' Forum to keep us in the know ahead of time!

Still no word from Lufthansa on the delayed flight compensation or the lower class of fare. Given they must be very busy this summer with traveler requests, I may just let it go.

Athens is wonderful! Hope everything goes smoothly for you, enjoy your trip!