If you’ve ever been to Frankfurt Airport (and not Hahn, the one Ryanair pretends is close enough to be associated with Frankfurt), then you know that it is one massive place. The terminals can be confusing to navigate, and there’s basically an entire city attached to the airport. When I was there on my Lufthansa A380 trip in May, I had the chance to explore a little. Since connecting in Frankfurt is pretty common these days with United’s tight partnership with Lufthansa, I thought it would be fun to explore the place a bit in a blog post.

Let’s start with a map (click to expand):

It seems like Frankfurt should be a very easy airport. There are only two terminals today and they’re connected inside. The larger Terminal 1 is the domain of Lufthansa and its Star Alliance partners, Condor, and a few other minor stragglers while Terminal 2 is for everyone else. Seems pretty simple, right? Somehow, it doesn’t seem that easy when you’re on the inside.

Part of this is because the terminals are connected to public transit, high-speed rail, hotels, and shops in various places, so it gets to feel like a labyrinth. The good news is that if you get lost, you can survive in there for years without stepping foot outside. There’s even a supermarket down there, though it took us several wrong turns before we found it.

The two terminals are divided into five zones with A, B, and C in Terminal 1 and D and E in Terminal 2. I didn’t find it difficult to follow the signs for departure, but have your walking shoes on. When we departed from the high C gates, it was a trek to get out there. I will say that at least security is pleasant. The people were friendly and efficient. I particularly liked the contraption that automatically sends bins back to the beginning of the belt, so you don’t have to wait from an agent to slowly lug them over.

But before you get to security, make sure to stop and marvel at the enormous Solari boards. Frankfurt still has the old school departure boards that shuffle the letters and numbers as they update. There is nothing that screams “travel” more than those boards, and the content is pretty awe-inspiring as well with some very exotic destinations posted.

There are currently a handful of gates that can handle large A380-sized airplanes, and those gates are excellent. The ground level has a normal boarding lounge, but then there is an upstairs lounge that serves premium passengers. Each lounge serves two gates and boarding goes directly from the lounge to the airplane. It’s a great way to go.

Of course, one of the downsides about Frankfurt is that there are a lot of bus gates, so you may have to be shuttled out to the airplane.

Arrivals were somewhat more confusing for me. When we landed, we were on the same high C gates and had to walk for ages. But when we through customs, I was lost. I kept looking for the Lufthansa arrivals lounge but wasn’t sure I was going the right way. At one point, I had to briefly walk outside and cross over a small road to get back into the terminal where the lounge was.

The lounge itself was very nice with a great, refreshing shower, though I do have to say that I like the shower BA had at Heathrow better. Still, I highly recommend using the facilities if you’re in a premium cabin on the airline.

From there, you’ll see Frankfurt Airport’s greatest strengths. It is deeply connected into the transportation network of Europe. There are frequent local trains into the city and the airport’s close proximity means it’s a very fast ride. On top of that, the airport has a high speed rail stop that’s so efficient that some nearby cities don’t even have air service anymore. If you want to go the 100 miles to Cologne, for instance, then Lufthansa codeshares with high speed rail to get you straight there. If that’s not enough, the airport sits at the intersection of two major autobahn arteries which makes driving easy. I can only wish more US airports were this connected into a multi-modal network.

The high speed train station is actually forming the base of a monster new “airport city” they call The Squaire. This thing has shopping, office, living, hotels, etc and seems to be slowly opening in phases. The Hilton that’s opening there accompanies the Sheraton which is also attached to the airport. Lufthansa put us up at the Sheraton and it was a nice place, though the hotel itself is monstrously large.

The airport has been on a building spree as of late, and that doesn’t seem to be stopping anytime soon. Frankfurt will be opening its fourth runway later this year and eventually that will boost capacity by around 20 operations per hour. (For those of you who live in the UK, building a new runway is what happens when your government isn’t short-sighted.) This will help handle expected growth that will start to be served when the new extension to the A concourse is finished down the line.

The runway configuration at the airport is actually quite interesting. There are two main parallel runways that see the bulk of the traffic at the airport, but then there is another perpendicular runway that is used only for departures to the south. You can see it at the bottom left side of the map above. Why is it only used for departures? I imagine it’s because arrivals on that runway would interrupt operations on the other runways. (There are also some mountains to the north that might be of concern.)

The new runway will be for arrivals only, balancing out the number of runways that can be used for departures and arrivals.

In the long term, development will be on the south side. Until just a few years ago, the entire south side of the airport was the Rhein-Main US Air Force Base. When that was shut, the airport got the land and it is working on developing plans for a new massive Terminal 3. Lufthansa’s A380 hangar is already there on the south side, but there will be a lot more as this place continues to grow bigger and bigger.

Since the 3 hour tarmac delay rule went into effect last year, tarmac delays have, as expected, basically disappeared. (That was only possible due to more cancellations, but I digress.) May was a little different. The most recent DOT Air Travel Consumer Report for May travel is out, and this time, there were sixteen long delays. Fourteen of those belonged to American Eagle on May 29, when awful weather rolled over Chicago’s O’Hare Airport. Here’s what happened.

American was surprisingly talkative on this issue, and I received a detailed explanation from spokesperson Tim Smith at the airline. The problem, of course, was weather. The morning started off with calm winds but fog and low clouds lasted until almost 10a. Visibility was down to 0.2 miles, and that was the first problem. It started to lift, but then the thunderstorms hit. They lasted on and off through the mid-afternoon.

When lightning gets near an airport, they close down the ramp and make everyone go into a safe location. It’s never a good idea to have people out on the ramp, risking a lightning strike. You also never want to be doing something like fueling an airplane when lightning is around, so delays mount quickly. That happened three separate times on May 29, and each stoppage lasted for about 40 minutes. That put operations at the airport in complete disarray.

As you would expect, the airlines started canceling a number of flights to try to prevent total gridlock. American Eagle alone canceled 126 flights through early afternoon with the forecast showing that weather would improve by around 1p. It didn’t. This is when it got ugly.

As the weather cleared around 3p, more flights started coming in to Chicago, but American Eagle had no gates available because it couldn’t get airplanes to depart fast enough. With its crews scattered around in the wrong places and other departing flights delayed longer than expected, the flights that came in had no place to park. That meant that 14 flights sat on the tarmac for more than 3 hours. (American actually says 15 flights, but the DOT only shows 14.) The longest was for 3 hour and 45 minutes, but the average for those flights was 3 hours and 18 minutes.

The good news is that Eagle was prepared with snacks, water, and working lavs on all the airplanes. That’s the part of the tarmac delay rule that makes a lot of sense to me, and I’m glad it’s there. But you still had a lot of people onboard for a long time. What else could have been done?

Well, American Eagle could have canceled more flights before they came into Chicago. Had the forecast been more accurate, maybe that would have been the case, but weather is unpredictable. Then again, if those inbound flights had been canceled, there would have been many more problems. All those people going into Chicago on would have been stuck where they started instead of getting to their destination with a 3 hour ground delay. With Memorial Day being the next day, it’s unlikely they would have been able to find seats on another flight for some time.

Beyond that, those flights had crews on them that needed to operate other flights out of Chicago. So if those canceled, then a slew of flights leaving Chicago would have been canceled as well. It’s likely that with those airplanes having to come right back to Chicago after that, those flights would have been canceled as well. It would have snowballed, and that’s why airlines only cancel flights when they have to in situations like these. American thought it had planned correctly, but it made a mistake.

I know what you’re thinking. Why not just let everyone off the airplane on buses if there are no gates? American had this to say:

Options for deplaning customers on a pad or other remote location at ORD are very limited. The possibility of deplaning customers on the taxiway and busing them back to the terminal was considered, but rejected on the basis of safety concerns. There was a great deal of activity and congestion on the ramp and we did not want to take that risk.

That was probably smart. Maybe instead of a new runway, O’Hare should simply focus on building some new ramp space where airplanes can park and unload people in situations like this.

In the end, with the tarmac delay rule in place, American probably would have just canceled more flights in advance had it had a more accurate weather report. I bet that’s what United did that day. But would that have really been better for everyone on those flights? That’s a whole different question.

[Original photos via Flickr users ColumbusCameraOp and SmokingPermitted - "Cosa sono? La bambina dei no"/CC 2.0]

Summer travel: Watch out for amateurs – CNN Out of the Office
This was a fun one to write. Just a few tips for those road warriors who have to navigate family travel during the busy summer. I love kids, but flying in a tube for many hours with them isn’t ideal for anyone.

In the Trenches: Building a Corporate Culture over Email – Intuit Small Business Blog
It’s not easy to build a culture when everyone is remote.

San Bernardino airport nearing commercial service, officials say – Redlands Daily Facts
I commented that I don’t see much of a near term future for San Bernardino Airports in its quest for commercial service . . . not unless they want to start paying.

Allegiant has finally received permission to fly the 757 from the FAA. Until it gets certification to fly long overwater segments to Hawai’i (ETOPS), these airplanes will head from Vegas to McAllen (TX) and Rockford (IL). Anyone want to speculate on whether Allegiant will in fact begin Hawai’i flying by next summer? Where do you think the airline will fly from on the mainland?

I have a wedding coming up in September, and I was faced with a unique situation on the way back. Five different airlines were similarly priced, all requiring a single stop. I know that what’s important varies from person to person, but I thought this would be a fun look at what makes me tick and what I imagine others might consider as well.

First of all, I should note that my wife and I will be meeting in NYC a few days beforehand coming from different places, so we booked those separately. This was just a look at the return flight, and we only wanted White Plains. As long-time readers know, we always prefer Long Beach over LAX, but Long Beach required two stops coming back from White Plains and the times weren’t great, so we opted for LAX. One last caveat – for some, the frequent flier program is what matters, but I couldn’t care less. I mean, I’ll earn miles when I fly, but I don’t ever make a decision based on the program.

With that out of the way, we found flights ranging from $141 to $190 on these five different airlines. The price difference in that range didn’t matter to me, so we just focused on what would work best. Here’s how our thinking went from least interesting to most.

5. AirTran via Atlanta, leave 629p, arrive 1159p
   In my mind, AirTran is (or should I say “was” since it’ll be Southwest soon enough) never a serious contender for my business. I like the XM radio and the wifi, and I love the 717 (or any Douglas-built airplane). But the knee-crunching legroom on the 717 (which would take us to Atlanta) is just too much. Last time I flew AirTran was in December 2005 from Indianapolis to Ft Lauderdale, and my legs were angry. I’m not a tall man, but even on that 2 hour flight it was painful. Plus, the very late arrival time in LA just wasn’t going to work well for us.
4. United via Chicago, leave 1202p, arrive 436p
   I’ll admit that this one started out strong. With the shortest total duration of any flight, it seemed attractive, but then I looked under the surface. That first flight is on a Bombardier CRJ. That’s not comfy for 2+ hours either. Then it was on to an A319 with no internet and only overhead screens. But beyond that, the short 53 minute connection time made me anxious, especially going from Express to mainline. If you land on the F concourse and have to fly out of C in Chicago, that’s a hike. And if there’s a delay, there’s no room for error. Not worth it, even though this was the cheapest at $141.
3. American via Chicago, leave 1240p, arrive 525p
   On the surface, this looks good. It’s a short (but not too short) 1h10m layover in Chicago and we get to ride on a 767 to LA. It’s hard to turn down a widebody on a domestic flight, unless the widebody provides a substandard experience. First off, we would have had 2 hours on an Embraer Regional Jet to get to Chicago. That airplane is somewhat tolerable for a single traveler on the side but not for two people sitting together. I mean, not for that long of a flight. And then we’d be rewarded with one of American’s old 767s which have no internet and just overhead screens showing movies. Why would I want to subject myself to that if I had other options?
2. US Airways via Philadelphia, leave 305p, arrive 845p
   It may sound strange to some, but US Airways provided a compelling option. First of all, it was a short hop down to Philly on a Dash-8 prop. If the weather was good, that would be a beautiful ride. Then we’d ride a nice A321 home with wifi onboard to keep us busy. A 1h45m layover sounded good for notoriously crowded Philly, and this almost made the cut. The holdback? The 845p arrival was later than either one of us liked. Also, we would be ready to go earlier in the day and it would have just been a waste of time stick around until 305p. Otherwise, this was a good option.
1. Delta via Atlanta, leave 1030a, arrive 454p
   This may seem like an odd choice since Atlanta isn’t exactly on the way to LA and the 2+ hour layover may not be ideal, but for us, this was the best option. A longer layover never bothers me if I’m not in a time crunch, because it just builds in some nice slack to the process in case something goes wrong. The flight to Atlanta is also on an regional jet, but it’s the more comfortable CRJ-700. And the flight back from Atlanta will have wifi and live TV onboard. That will make this trip go much quicker. I’ve said in the past that I prefer to be unplugged, and that’s true. But the concierge business means that I need to be in touch at all times just in case something goes wrong. Wifi becomes more and more important.

So that’s that. It’s funny that the decision-making process is so different than it would have been just a few years ago. The thought that internet would even be a factor is new, but it’s becoming more important. Usage is still low, but I have to assume it’s going to change over time.

I know everyone has different criteria for choosing flights, so what would you have picked?