Frankfurt Airport guide
Terminals · Sky Line · trains · parking · arrivals · timing
Germany's busiest airport has two terminals, its own high-speed rail station, and an arrivals walk that takes longer than people expect. This guide explains how Terminal 1 and Terminal 3 relate, every way to reach the city or travel onward, where to park, what happens after you land, and when to set off.
Frankfurt Airport at a glance
Frankfurt Airport (FRA) is Germany's busiest airport and one of the largest hubs in the world, about 12 km southwest of the city centre. It sits directly on the Frankfurter Kreuz — the interchange where the A3 and A5 motorways cross — which is exactly why it is reachable by car from a vast catchment, and why towns 100 to 700 km away treat it as their home airport.
| At a glance | |
|---|---|
| Code | FRA — Frankfurt Airport |
| Location | ~12 km southwest of Frankfurt city centre |
| Motorways | A3 & A5, meeting at the Frankfurter Kreuz |
| Passenger terminals | Terminal 1 and Terminal 3 |
| On-site rail | Regional station + long-distance ICE station |
| Terminal link | Free Sky Line people mover, ~8 min |
Since 2026 it has run two passenger terminals, Terminal 1 and Terminal 3, connected by a free people mover. It also has two of its own railway stations built into the site: a regional station beneath Terminal 1 and a long-distance ICE station beside it. Few airports let you walk off a plane and straight onto a high-speed train to another city — this one does.
The rest of this guide covers the parts travellers actually get wrong: which terminal your flight uses, how to move between them, every way to reach the city or your onward destination, where to park, what really happens after you land, and when to set off so you are never the reason the plane leaves without you.
Terminal 1 & Terminal 3
Terminal 1 is the older and larger building: split into Concourses A, B, C and Z, it handles mainly Lufthansa and its Star Alliance partners. Terminal 3 opened on the southern side of the airport on 23 April 2026 and is organised into Pier G for Schengen flights plus the longer Piers H and J for intercontinental departures. By early June 2026 some 57 airlines had moved across in four waves — among them Emirates, Qatar Airways, Etihad, Korean Air, Cathay Pacific, Air France, KLM and Delta.
If your terminal changes at short notice, a transfer driver simply moves to the new meeting point at no extra charge. The only thing that matters is that your flight number was entered when booking.
Terminal 2 still appears in search results and older travel documents, but its airlines have relocated to Terminal 3; the building is being refurbished and is not expected back in passenger service for years. If your ticket still says Terminal 2, check the current booking — your flight is handled at Terminal 1 or Terminal 3 today.
Which terminal applies to you is printed on your ticket and follows from the flight number. That number is the only detail a driver genuinely needs: it yields the terminal, the concourse or pier, and the real landing time. The two terminals are several kilometres apart and not connected on foot, so arriving at the wrong one costs you half an hour. Each has its own arrivals and departures levels and its own forecourt — which is why a transfer meeting point is agreed per terminal, never as a vague "at the airport".
Getting between Terminal 1 and Terminal 3
Because the terminals sit on opposite sides of the runways, you cannot walk between them. The free Sky Line people mover links Terminal 1, the Terminal 2 stop and Terminal 3 in about eight minutes, running every two to three minutes for most of the day at no charge — the normal way to switch terminals.
The Sky Line pauses overnight, roughly between 23:00 and 04:00, when free shuttle buses run between the terminals at ground level instead. Those buses are also the backup whenever the people mover is out of service, so a terminal change is always possible, day or night.
If your itinerary connects between airlines in different terminals, allow a comfortable buffer — 60 to 90 minutes is realistic once you factor in the Sky Line ride and a second security check. For a transfer booking none of this applies: the meeting point is fixed to the terminal your flight actually uses, so there is no terminal-hopping to do.
Getting to and from the airport
FRA is one of the best-connected airports in Europe for onward travel. You can leave it by S-Bahn, regional train, high-speed ICE, taxi, private transfer, long-distance coach or your own car — every one of them from inside the terminal or a few minutes' walk away. There is no single "best" way; it depends on who you are travelling with and where you are actually going.
| Option | Best for | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| S-Bahn (S8 / S9) | Solo, light luggage, near a city station | ~12 min to Frankfurt Hbf |
| ICE / long-distance | Travelling on to another city | Direct, skip Frankfurt entirely |
| Private transfer | Groups, luggage, door-to-door | Fixed price, met in arrivals |
| Taxi | Short, spontaneous hops | Metered, from the rank |
| Rental / own car | Flexibility at the destination | Straight onto the A3 / A5 |
| Long-distance coach | Budget, no rail near the destination | From the coach station |
The table below is the short version. The two sections that follow go into the train and car options in detail, because those are where most of the useful decisions get made.
By train: the regional and long-distance stations
FRA has two separate stations, and telling them apart saves real confusion. The regional station (Regionalbahnhof) sits directly beneath Terminal 1 and carries the S-Bahn and regional trains. Lines S8 (towards Offenbach Ost) and S9 (towards Hanau) reach Frankfurt Hauptbahnhof in about twelve minutes and continue to Taunusanlage, Hauptwache and Konstablerwache in the city centre. Trains leave every few minutes and a single RMV ticket to the city is only a few euros — around €6 — a fraction of a taxi.
The long-distance station (Fernbahnhof) is a separate building beside Terminal 1, linked by a covered walkway of five to ten minutes. From here ICE and IC trains run directly to Cologne, Mannheim, Stuttgart, Bonn and dozens of other German and European cities, so for many journeys you never need to set foot in central Frankfurt at all. The Squaire complex sits above this station, with two Hilton hotels and a DB Lounge.
From Terminal 3, both stations are reached via the Sky Line to Terminal 1. Build in those extra minutes when you are catching a fixed long-distance train — an ICE will not wait, and the transfer between terminal and platform is the part people underestimate.
By car: motorways, parking and kiss & fly
The airport sits on the Frankfurter Kreuz, where the A3 (Cologne–Würzburg) meets the A5 (Basel–Kassel). That interchange is what puts FRA within a comfortable drive of a huge slice of Germany and the neighbouring countries — and why the route data on this site reaches roughly 700 km out.
Each terminal has its own multi-storey car parks — around 15,000 spaces in total — with short-stay levels close to the halls and cheaper long-stay areas further out. For a quick handover there are kiss & fly drop-off zones on the departures level, but they are strictly short-stop: anyone staying longer should use a car park rather than risk the no-stopping rules.
A private transfer removes the parking question entirely. The fixed price already includes the driver's terminal parking for the meet-and-greet, and there is no car of yours left at the airport running up a daily rate while you are away.
Arrivals step by step
More time passes after touchdown than most people plan for. Getting off the aircraft takes several minutes depending on the stand and the queue; a remote stand adds a bus ride to the terminal. Then comes the walk through the building, passport control if you are arriving from outside Schengen, and finally baggage reclaim — by far the least predictable step.
| Step after landing | Realistic duration |
|---|---|
| Disembarking at a gate stand | 5–15 min |
| Disembarking at a remote stand, by bus | 15–25 min |
| Passport control (non-Schengen) | 10–40 min |
| Baggage reclaim | 15–35 min |
| Walk to the meeting point | 5–10 min |
This is why transfer waiting time is tied to the landing rather than to the time you booked: 60 minutes from actual touchdown are included. The driver tracks the flight live and is in the terminal when you realistically get there — later if you are delayed, with nothing for you to do about it.
The meeting point itself never changes: the arrivals hall of your terminal, immediately beyond the customs exit. Your driver stands there holding a sign with your name and walks you to the car. That is the difference from a taxi rank — you are not looking for anyone, you are being met.
Transfer, taxi or train?
For one person with light luggage heading somewhere near a station, the train is often both the fastest and the cheapest option — and we will say so plainly. A transfer earns its place as soon as one of these is true: you are two or more, you have more than hand luggage, your destination is not on a rail line, you land at night or very early, or you are travelling with children, older relatives or business colleagues.
At that point the per-person comparison tips towards the door-to-door ride — no changes, no suitcases along platforms, no missed-connection risk. Against a taxi the real difference is predictability: the fixed price is set before you book and does not move, even if you sit in traffic. With a meter, that risk sits with the passenger.
At the airport: lounges, hotels and services
Both terminals are small cities in their own right — dozens of cafés, restaurants and shops airside and landside, pharmacies, supermarkets, prayer rooms and left-luggage counters. Terminal 1 holds the large Lufthansa lounge network, including the separate First Class Terminal; Terminal 3 opened with its own lounges for the airlines that moved across, and the DB Lounge sits in The Squaire for rail travellers.
If you need to stay the night, the Sheraton is attached to Terminal 1, and the Hilton and Hilton Garden Inn sit above the long-distance station in The Squaire — all reachable on foot without leaving the airport. The Squaire also holds restaurants and a supermarket, useful for an early start or a late landing.
For meeting someone off a flight, the arrivals hall of the correct terminal is the place to wait — not the forecourt, where stopping is limited. That is exactly where a transfer driver stands, and it is the one instruction worth giving anyone picking you up.
How early should you leave?
As a rule of thumb, be at the terminal 2 hours before a Schengen departure and 3 hours before a long-haul flight. Add the driving time itself plus a traffic buffer of roughly 20 percent — more during rush hour around the Frankfurter Kreuz interchange.
Every town page on this site states both figures for your specific route: the drive time and the resulting recommendation for when to set off. The booking form proposes the pickup time automatically once you enter your flight number and address, so you do not have to do the arithmetic yourself.
Two windows deserve extra care: early morning between five and seven, when the first departure wave overlaps with the start of commuter traffic, and Friday afternoon. In both cases leaving half an hour earlier is cheaper than needing that half hour later.
