My husband and I will be taking a train from Venice to Florence, take a cab to the airport to catch a 6:00 pm flight to Frankfurt. Our flight back to the US is the following afternoon out of Frankfurt. According to Lufthansa, the deadline to check in is 35 minutes before our flight. We plan on checking in on line at our hotel in Venice the day before and are not checking bags. Will we still have to check in at the counter or kiosk with our passports? Or if we have boarding passes can we proceed through security? Would we expect long lines through security? Are we cutting it too close by arriving via train at 4:30 to make the 6pm flight? Or should we take the earlier train from Venice? Any advice is greatly appreciated.
Just realized that Lufthansa only allows 1 small carryon, so we will be checking our rollers. However, the dealine to check in bags is still 35 minutes before the flight. Assuming the plane relatively small since cabin space is limited.
Wow for an international flight I would allow more time. More along 90 minutes just in case security is crowded or slow moving
Even though Florence airport is a small and your flight is intra-Europe, 90 minutes from arrival at Florence train station to flight departure is very tight. Any delay (late train, traffic problems on way to airport, wait to check your roller bags, slow security line, etc) could cause you to miss your flight. I'd suggest at a minimum taking the train that arrives an hour earlier.
Thanks for the advice, we'll take the earlier train for a little more breathing room. I wasn't thinking about it being an international flight since it was inter Europe.
I would suggest that you take an earlier train and not cut it that close. The good news is that your flight from Florence is not an international flight. It's a flight within the EU. Also, the Amerigo Vespucci airport (Florence) is not that large. You won't have trouble getting through. The plane is a smaller Airbus (we've been on it from Frankfurt to Florence). I suspect that you will retrieve your luggage at Frankfurt as it looks like you will be spending the night there. You'll need to go through security the next day. You will need a couple of hours there for check-in unless you fly business class which has a separate and shorter check-in line.
Now that Tranitalia has September schedules available for booking.... Looks like we can take a 1:30 train out of Venice arriving in Florence at 3:30. I'm assuming 2 1/2 hours should be plenty of time to make our 6PM flight to Frankfurt. Would appreciate any feedback either way before we book the train.