It would seem that as the Frankfurt airport has grown, they have built terminal space anywhere they could find space, and interconnected that space any old nilly-willy way they could. We were dutifully following the signs to concourse D, and walked in big circles through deserted hallways. There were seats, and places for future gates and even the electronic boards with flight information, just no people. We walked on and on. We were headed to gate D9 because a man at an information booth way back in terminal 1 concourse A had told us that. That is the ONLY time we ever heard or saw that our flight would be at that gate. Each set of gates had their own security checkpoint, so gates D1 - D4 had a security checkpoint, gates D5 - D8 did as well. Then we walked through another long deserted hallway, down an escalator, and found D9, with the doors locked tight and no one there. The flight information boards continued to only show concourse D as our destination - the " D" gates run up to number 54! Finally, security screeners started to show up, but none of them had a key. Then a tall guy (at least 6'6") rode up on a small bike (there were frequently airport personnel zooming by on bikes) and unlocked the doors. The security folks started processing people even though a bunch of us did not have boarding passes. "It's okay" is all they said, so we processed through. Security in Germany is different than US. Much more thorough, but polite. Looked through, opened up, dumped out much more from carry-on, lots of people searched and patted down, but very professional. We made it through fine. Finally, an airport guy showed up to do boarding passes, but the printer inside the security area was broken, so he had to go to the counter outside the security area. That meant we had to go through security again. Fortunately, the guy let me get all three tickets for all of us, so we could leave our bags inside the security area. Everyone got processed, the departure time came and went, and it was time board. No tunnel to the plane - in fact, no plane! We walked down four flights of steps, out to the Tarmac, and boarded buses. The planes for this area of the terminal are all parked out on a remote apron. I guess when they extended the terminal for the D concourse, they did not think it important to leave room to actually park a plane at the gate. So we drove out to the plane in a packed, standing room only bus, climbed the stairs, and found our seats. The Ukrainians must be big on efficiency, because the seats were tight! I literally could not sit in my seat with my legs straight in front of me - I had to spread them a little so my knees were on either side of the seat in front of me. Good thing it was Libby next to me, because I was definitely in "her space". But all went well, good flight into Kiev, took a long time to get our luggage, but all of it was there and in good shape, and our driver, Stas, and David Martin were both there to greet us as we escaped through customs.
That is crazy! German security scares me. Glad David was there to meet you.
ReplyDelete