Traveling Through Frankfurt Airport

Frank­furt Air­port (FRA) is Germany’s busiest air­port. In fact, it’s one of the busiest in all of Europe! It is also the world hub of Lufthansa, Germany’s flag car­ri­er and a major inter­na­tion­al air­line. Con­nec­tions are avail­able from FRA to more than 300 des­ti­na­tions worldwide.

Frank­furt Air­port cur­rent­ly has two ter­mi­nals and six con­cours­es as well as two train sta­tions. Its third ter­mi­nal is under con­struc­tion and sched­uled to open par­tial­ly in sum­mer 2026.

The air­port is easy to access from Stuttgart. Flights to and from Frank­furt are often cheap­er and more direct than those out of Stuttgart Air­port (STR), so it’s worth look­ing into options via FRA.

Transportation to and from FRA

By Train

From Stuttgart, you can take a num­ber of ICE and IC trains direct­ly to the long-dis­tance train sta­tion at Frank­furt Air­port, Frank­furt (Main) Flughafen Fern­bahn­hof. There are also con­nec­tions with a brief trans­fer in Mannheim. In either case, the jour­ney gen­er­al­ly takes just under two hours.

Be sure to book your train via “Frank­furt (M) Flughafen” rather than “Frank­furt (Main) Hbf”. There are local trains con­nect­ing the air­port Region­al­bahn­hof from Frankfurt’s main sta­tion, but such a trans­fer can lead to sig­nif­i­cant delays. It’s also impor­tant to bud­get plen­ty of mar­gin if you’re tak­ing the train to the air­port the same day as your flight. Miss­ing your flight due to a train delay may result in expen­sive rebook­ing fees.

Some­times if you book flights to (from) Stuttgart, your itin­er­ary will include a flight from (to) Frank­furt with a con­nect­ing train between Frank­furt and Stuttgart. For exam­ple, Lufthansa’s Express Rail ser­vice reserves seats on spe­cif­ic ICE trains for pas­sen­gers with com­bined flight-train itin­er­aries. One advan­tage to such itin­er­aries is that, just as when you have mul­ti­ple flights on one itin­er­ary, any delay on one leg that caus­es you to miss a sub­se­quent leg is the airline’s respon­si­bil­i­ty. They will have to pro­vide you with an alter­na­tive flight or train.

By Bus

Var­i­ous com­pa­nies offer routes to Frank­furt Air­port from Stuttgart, includ­ing BlaBlaCar Bus and FlixBus. FlixBus offers direct con­nec­tions which stop at the Stuttgart air­port and in Korn­wes­t­heim, with trav­el times between three and four hours.

Arrival for all such long-dis­tance bus­es is in the park­ing lot P36, from which you can take a yel­low shut­tle bus to Ter­mi­nal 1 and Ter­mi­nal 2. It’s also just a 5- to 10-minute walk from the park­ing lot to Ter­mi­nal 1.

If you plan to spend some time in Frank­furt before or after your trip, many Frank­furt hotels also offer shut­tle ser­vice to the airport.

By Car

There are easy high­way con­nec­tions to FRA via the A3, A5, and A67. The air­port has sev­er­al car rental options and even has gas sta­tions and elec­tric vehi­cle charg­ing on site.

Rideshare apps pick up and drop off in the short-term park­ing lot (P31) at Ter­mi­nal 1, which is very con­ve­nient to both Arrivals and Departures.

Parking

FRA has a vari­ety of park­ing options. If you’re plan­ning to leave your car at the air­port while you trav­el, you can save mon­ey by book­ing online in advance. Can­cel­la­tion is free until 24 hours before the start of your reser­va­tion. There is hand­i­cap park­ing avail­able as well as des­ig­nat­ed rows reserved for women.

Use the des­ig­nat­ed Drop-Off Area right next to Depar­tures if you’re bring­ing some­one to the air­port. You have up to 10 min­utes twice a day there for free. When pick­ing some­one up, you’re advised to park in one of the lots or garages close to the ter­mi­nals, where fees are very low in the first half hour.

Logistics

Frank­furt Air­port is a very large com­plex with con­cours­es stretch­ing over a mile and a half. For­tu­nate­ly, they have put a lot of thought into help­ing trav­el­ers make their tran­sit smooth­ly. There are clear­ly marked signs in both Ger­man and Eng­lish through­out the air­port as well as a vari­ety of infor­ma­tion­al dis­plays. In addi­tion, there are infor­ma­tion desks and elec­tron­ic kiosks where you can get per­son­al­ized assistance.

Getting Around the Airport

It’s impor­tant to bud­get enough time to move between areas of the air­port. Even if you take advan­tage of all avail­able mobil­i­ty options, there’s often a lot of ground to cov­er, and some­times you just have to walk a fair distance.

There are yel­low shut­tle bus­es that move between the long-dis­tance bus park­ing lot (P36), Arrivals at Ter­mi­nal 1, and Ter­mi­nal 2. They depart every 5 to 10 min­utes around the clock.

The Sky Line is a tram that moves between Ter­mi­nal 1 and Ter­mi­nal 2, with stops for the Con­course A/Z tran­sit area, Con­course B Depar­tures, Con­course C tran­sit area, and the Con­course D/E shop­ping plaza. It departs every few min­utes, also oper­at­ing around the clock.

You can check out this print­able map or this inter­ac­tive map to help you plan your way through the air­port and find the loca­tion of var­i­ous amenities.

Baggage and Security

The rules for bag­gage drop-off vary by air­line. Many air­lines par­tic­i­pate in Fast Bag Drop, where you can use a kiosk to check in your bag. A cou­ple of air­lines have bag­gage drop-off avail­able at the train sta­tion, so you don’t have to car­ry your lug­gage through to the air­port ter­mi­nals. It’s always pos­si­ble to go to the check-in desk for your air­line and check in your bags there.

Frank­furt Air­port has mul­ti­ple secu­ri­ty check­points. Some­times they will close cer­tain areas to bet­ter dis­trib­ute the flow of peo­ple. FRA Smart­Way allows you to book a time slot for the secu­ri­ty check­point in advance online. Most of the major secu­ri­ty check­points also offer Fast Lanes reserved for pre­mi­um pas­sen­gers and peo­ple whose flights will be depart­ing soon, with flight num­bers dis­played on the screens above the lanes.

The dis­plays imme­di­ate­ly after you exit secu­ri­ty indi­cate flight depar­ture gates and esti­mat­ed walk­ing time from secu­ri­ty to each gate. Depend­ing on your des­ti­na­tion, you may need to pass through addi­tion­al pass­port and/or secu­ri­ty checks.

Amenities

It’s no sur­prise that Germany’s busiest air­port has an exten­sive range of ameni­ties. There are air­port hotels suit­able for dif­fer­ent bud­gets, includ­ing two hotels locat­ed imme­di­ate­ly at the train sta­tion and one with­in the air­port for tran­sit­ing pas­sen­gers. At the long-dis­tance train sta­tion you can find a gro­cery store, drug­store, and mul­ti­ple restau­rants. The Air­port City Mall offers all kinds of shop­ping and din­ing, includ­ing banks, phar­ma­cies, beau­ty ser­vices, dry-clean­ing, bak­eries, fast food, dine-in restau­rants, and more. Frank­furt also has sev­er­al air­port lounges.

After going through secu­ri­ty, you will still find a vari­ety of shop­ping and din­ing options. There are design­er out­lets and con­ve­nience stores as well as the usu­al duty-free shops, restau­rants and food ven­dors offer­ing many cuisines, and even a spa. Addi­tion­al ameni­ties include play areas for chil­dren, places to watch movies and play video games, yoga and prayer rooms, and places where you can pay for a show­er or a nap cab­in. Plus, the entire air­port offers free Wi-Fi and lots of charg­ing stations.

Hahn Airport

From late 2001 to ear­ly 2023, Hahn Air­port was called “Frank­furt-Hahn Air­port”. Many trav­el­ers had the unfor­tu­nate expe­ri­ence in the past of book­ing cheap flights via Hahn, only to dis­cov­er just how far away it is from Frank­furt. The air­port is 75 miles (120km) from Frank­furt by car. Pub­lic trans­porta­tion to Hahn, such as shut­tle bus­es, takes approx­i­mate­ly 1.5–2 hours from Frankfurt’s main sta­tion, mak­ing the over­all trav­el time from Stuttgart considerable.

Nev­er­the­less, if you are plan­ning to trav­el to the air­port by car any­way, look­ing into flights via Hahn may be of inter­est. It is the sec­ond base of Ryanair, and oth­er bud­get air­lines also offer flights through Hahn.