Frankfurt Connection Times - Lufthansa to United

[Clay Clayton]

I hope some of you experienced international travelers can help relieve my mind. The DH and I are using FF points to fly to our Greek cruise this April. For the return, we are flying from Istanbul and arrive at Frankfurt at 3:55 pm. Our outbound United flight to Dulles departs at 5 pm. I have asked and asked the agents and even got bumped up the line to a service manager and all keep saying that this is a legal connection and that it shouldn't be an issue. The only other flight that was available left IST at 5:45 am which mean leaving the ship (we arrive the day before and are overnighting in Istanbul)at 3 in the morning - not quite the way I want to end my vacation...but even if I did, I couldn't get the same answer twice out of NCL when i asked if we could disembark at that hour - their official word is to not have a flight out before 7am but one agent "checked" and said we could get off whenever we want.

 

I am worried that if our inbound flight is the least little bit late we won't make it and given we are using our hoard of points to fly biz, I don't want to end up on a later flight sitting in economy.

 

So, the questions:

If we are on time, will we be able to make the connection?

 

How far is it from Luftansa's gates to United's?

 

Do we have to go through immigration - United says no...but from my research on this and Flyertalk, it seems like we might.

 

Should I demand that we be put on another flight the next day and spend a nite in FRF? presuming we can find biz seats available?

 

Thanks for any and all advice!

 

Clay

[JJPNYC]

You'll be clearing customs & immigration at Dulles when you arrive back in the US. However, I have seen German officials doing a cursory check of passports when people are deplaning on the jetway in the past. This has the possibility of slowing things down somewhat.

 

FRA is a fairly easy airport to navigate. However a 1 hour connection does seem a bit tight. You might want to see when the next flight to IAD is as a back-up.

[Keith1010]

I was in a similar situation a few years ago out of Istanbul. We decided to just spend the night in Frankfurt Airport and stayed at the hotel (I believe a Sheraton) that is connected to the airport. As it turned out our flight out of Istanbul was delayed about one hour so we would have missed our connection.

 

If it was me I would either look for another flight/connection or spend the night in Frankfurt.

 

US Immigration will be done at the first USA airport.

 

Keith

[fti]

That is a legal connection but certainly does not leave much room for error.

 

If you voluntarily try to change your flights to the next day, my guess is that they will charge you for it. It seems like you booked this connection - it is not a result of a schedule change.

 

You might just want to take your chances and if you miss the 5pm flight due to something other than weather, the airline should put you up in a hotel at their expense.

 

There is also at 5.25pm flight via Chicago to Dulles that would give you more time to connect, though certainly a longer day.

[Clay Clayton]

Thanks for the advice!

Let's presume the Luftansa flight is late. Will I end up in the middle between them and United over who is responsible for getting me home? And do they have any responsiblity to get us home in biz? If not, do I have any recourse to get my points back?

[JJPNYC]

Since you're talking United & Lufthansa and they are both part of Star Alliance, it sounds like you have a code share ticket on one leg of the trip (I'm guessing the Lufthansa leg).

 

With that you -should- be taken care of if your first flight is delayed and you missed your second since your itinerary is written on one ticket as a connecting itinerary.

 

As for getting home in biz, this gets sticky. In theory you paid for a class of service and should fly in that class. However if you missed the original flight and all that was available were coach seats on the next flight or waiting until tomorrow for the next flight with biz class, then that is a personal decision. However, in this example, if you do decide to go for the coach seats you SHOULD be able to request a credit for the mileage difference between what you paid for your biz seat & the economy seat you got. Beyond that United owes you nothing since they basically "made you whole" by getting you back to IAD and only charging you the appropriate tarriff for the class of service flown.

[Clay Clayton]

I guess I do have one ticket so i hope you are right...but I do have two confirmation numbers..one for UA and one for Luft....so maybe I don't. I better look into that. Either way, given the difficulty in finding award biz seats, i am very concerned that I will end up in coach wasting my points....and since we will have flown one way, and since the points are USAir points, I doubt United is going to be helpful. I may call them again and see if there isn't some other routing.

 

Clay

[Chesterbid]

I read this thread and just thought I would add our experience with Lufthansa on our 2005 Med cruise, round trip out of Barcelona.

 

My DH is a major flyer with United. For this trip we bought H class tickets on LH and had UA MP miles to upgrade to biz. THe flight was oversold outbound to the cruise but we did get the upgrade on the return, arranged in Barcelona for the FRA to US portion. When I bought the tickets it was a 45 min connection in FRA. I call LH several times to get different answers about making that tight connection. Every time LH said yes, it would be fine.

 

We were delayed leaving Barcelona (I think we were waiting for some other passengers to make the BCN flight). I sat and watch our 45 min connect disappear. As we were approaching FRA, the help lights starting coming on from all over the plane with people worried about making the same connection we were on. As we landed, it was announced if you we making this certain connection, please meet a LH offical at the top of the jetway. We were all escorted QUICKLY thru a passport check and security (for carry on bags and our persons) and made the flight to the US. They still held our biz class seats, too. As we were settling in, the captain came on and said they were waiting for 40 + passengers from the Barcelona fight. We actually didn't leave FRA until over an hour after it was scheduled. We arrive back in the States at the orginally scheduled time (The pilot made up over an hour!).

 

Anyway, to make a long story short (Oops, too late!!), I have never been so impressed with an airline as I was with LH. I am willing to bet any US line would have not done this. If LH says so, it will be fine, I would fly with them anytime.

[Jade13]

I hope some of you experienced international travelers can help relieve my mind. The DH and I are using FF points to fly to our Greek cruise this April. For the return, we are flying from Istanbul and arrive at Frankfurt at 3:55 pm. Our outbound United flight to Dulles departs at 5 pm. I have asked and asked the agents and even got bumped up the line to a service manager and all keep saying that this is a legal connection and that it shouldn't be an issue. The only other flight that was available left IST at 5:45 am which mean leaving the ship (we arrive the day before and are overnighting in Istanbul)at 3 in the morning - not quite the way I want to end my vacation...but even if I did, I couldn't get the same answer twice out of NCL when i asked if we could disembark at that hour - their official word is to not have a flight out before 7am but one agent "checked" and said we could get off whenever we want.

 

I am worried that if our inbound flight is the least little bit late we won't make it and given we are using our hoard of points to fly biz, I don't want to end up on a later flight sitting in economy.

 

So, the questions:

If we are on time, will we be able to make the connection?

 

How far is it from Luftansa's gates to United's?

 

Do we have to go through immigration - United says no...but from my research on this and Flyertalk, it seems like we might.

 

Should I demand that we be put on another flight the next day and spend a nite in FRF? presuming we can find biz seats available?

 

Thanks for any and all advice!

 

Clay

 

 

We went through this last year and made our flight. We were on Luftansa all the way through to the US. I heard there could be an issue so took the page off the plane with the diagram of the Franfurt airport. We had to be driven by a bus from the plane to the terminal and I believe we went through another security line but it went pretty fast. We are doing this again next year Rome-Frankfurt-US, so it wasn't bad enough that I would avoid the airport.

 

Make sure you phone Luftansa directly. Last year they had paper tickets only (US Air Award) and when we got to Rome they had us going to another city not where we live. We were lucky they had seats left (and together on the flight we wanted). I knew before we left there was an issue but US Air phoned us in the US Air Club before we left the US and told us they had called Luftansa to straighten it out (I am glad I had a paper ticket because they kept saying in Rome, aren't you going to Detroit?....I am stuck with paper again next year because although Luftansa now has an arrangement to use electronic, SWISS does not..and we are taking SWISS home.

[Clay Clayton]

Chesterbid - Thanks for the story...it relieves my mind somewhat to know that Lufthansa took good care of you...now if i could just find out if there are as many people on our flight making the same connection I would feel great! I doubt that there will be that many folks but will keep my fingers crossed.

 

Jade - Thanks for your thoughts. We have electronic tickets and have been in touch with United and Lufthansa and they both show us with the same flights going to the RIGHT cities! Am a little worried as the "non english as a first language" USAir agent who booked the flights spelled my partner's name wrong (MichealWayne Lastname rather than Michael Wayne Lastname) and when I called them back after I got the email confirmation, they said the only way to change it was to book another set of tickets and then cancel this one...of course no more award seats to be had ...so hopefully a note from USAir to both United and Lufthansa will surffice...not really worried about the airlines, but hope we get through Turkish security....we shall see.

 

Anyway, thanks to all for your advice and thoughts.

Clay

[Jade13]

We are doing this again next year Rome-Frankfurt-US, so it wasn't bad enough that I would avoid the airport.

 

, SWISS does not..and we are taking SWISS home.

 

Meant to say going US-Frankfurt-Rome on Luftansa and Rome-Zurich-US back on SWISS next year.

[Jade13]

 

Jade - Thanks for your thoughts. We have electronic tickets and have been in touch with United and Lufthansa and they both show us with the same flights going to the RIGHT cities! Am a little worried as the "non english as a first language" USAir agent who booked the flights spelled my partner's name wrong (MichealWayne Lastname rather than Michael Wayne Lastname)

Clay

 

 

Clay, it just sounds like they are missing a space between first and Middle. I can't imagine that would be an issue since there is no actual spelling error. I assumed you phoned the United divdend miles (or whatever they call it) group to speak to someone? In Rome they looked at my passport and did not look up at me to see if anything matched!

[fti]

Clay, it just sounds like they are missing a space between first and Middle. I can't imagine that would be an issue since there is no actual spelling error. I assumed you phoned the United divdend miles (or whatever they call it) group to speak to someone? In Rome they looked at my passport and did not look up at me to see if anything matched!

 

I wouldn't want you booking flights in my name either :D . Not only is the space missing but two letters are reversed MichEAl and MichAEl.

 

If you insist and escalate it far enough, the airline has an obligation to change it since it is their mistake (and yes they can force more award availability if they have to). But most likely it won't make a difference unless you are trying to earn frequent flyer mileage credit. Without an exact name match to the frequent flyer account, mileage accrual won't be automatic.

[Clay Clayton]

Which is what is really funny, since they had to have his FF number in order to award the flight...you would think the compuer would have not let them enter his name wrong.

 

Clay