If one is on a flight that arrives in FRA from the US at 1PM, is it reasonable to expect to be able to catch a train around 430-445PM, from the airport train station?
I am aware of all the caveats about flight delays etc.; looking for info on what the range of time is, spent going through the entry processing.
No checked baggage. Arrival would be on a Thursday or Friday
Advance purchase train tix $60; walk up is $150. per person
Thanks!
I fly through Frankfurt a lot. On weekday mornings (when one would expect numerous flights from the US are arriving), I've never had any sort of wait for entry processing. Literally, there might be a handful of other folks going through immigration, but with multiple agents, the wait is at most a minute or two. I've also connected through there on both weekday and weekend afternoons, and the lines at immigration are a bit longer then. Still, I don't think I've waited longer than 15-20 minutes. Even with a longer wait, I think you'd be able to catch a train three and a half hours after your arrival. Frankfurt is a big airport, but I often have to traverse it in its entirety to catch my connection, and that still takes less than an hour from flight landing time.
I've been through FRA several times with just carry-on. It always feels like a hop-skip and a jump and on my train.
Of course I'm walking half asleep as my arrivals are very early from the East coast. I have never seen long queue, it
moves very quickly.
I agree with the others. I've been through Frankfurt several times and it is always busy, but very efficient. I had a 9:30 am arrival in May and had time to get lunch and sit around doing nothing, trying to stay awake before catching a bus at 12:50. You should be fine barring any big, unusual delays.
To where are you going after arriving at FRA? Sometimes you might spend more time waiting 3 hours to take an express train with a Savings Fare ticket than you would have by leaving immediately on a regional train using a regional pass.
Lee-
- I would be going to Amsterdam. There is a direct train around 445PM. There are earlier departures with multiple connections but they get to Amsterdam not that much earlier than the 445PM train. ( At least with as far out as I can see on DB, that's the case)
So far the consensus seems to be 3 hrs is sufficient time to get from the plane to the train, with some leeway, should the plane be a bit late. ?
Thanks
No problem if your plane is on time or not too late. When I did this, the plane was several hours late. Our forfeited ticket was only 29E for the two of us, so it was worth the gamble.
This is low risk. Go for it
