And so onto our final stop - the Hilton Frankfurt Airport. Just for the night on the journey back home from Helsinki. Should be a piece of cake, after all the hotel advertises itself as being attached to and just a short walk from Terminal 1 where we both arrive and depart from. Frankfurt’s airport is both vast and mostly lacking in air conditioning or for that matter seemingly lacking in any form of air circulation. Normally I suppose that wouldn’t matter, but on our arrival evening the outside temperature was still in the mid-30’s C (that’s the mid-90’s F) so the terminal itself was like a sauna. If the Hilton was attached to Terminal 1, they certainly won’t going to make that apparent to the casual visitor. The arrival hall was devoid of any useful (or for that matter, useless) signs or for that matter an information desk. We eventually find an electronic map which does mention the hotel of our dreams but few clues on how to find it!
The hotel website does mention a pedestrian bridge, so we take a chance and struggle up an escalator with our suitcases on the assumption that a bridge must be at least one floor up. We had attempted (several times) to get a baggage trolley but in Frankfurt’s high tech airport, baggage trolleys are locked into electronic enclosures only to be released on the payment of 1 Euro - but only with a credit card and the clever German machines failed to recognize any of ours!
We finally locate the entrance to a pedestrian bridge and spot tiny signs to not just one, but two Hiltons (oh...and a Sheraton). Walking another kilometre or two (it might have been more or less, but seemed much further in the sauna-like conditions) we arrive in the glittering glass and steel (unairconditioned) atrium of what signs proudly proclaim to have been voted the world’s best airport hotel! The almost smiling check-in person informs us that we’ve been upgraded to the Executive Floor where the lounge is still serving drinks and snacks....but only for another five minutes. It was after all very nearly 8:30!
Next day we decide that even “as close” as this hotel-of-our-dreams is to the Lufthansa check in, we’d better allow at least half an hour to get through. That was being optimistic as it turned out. It took us a while to negotiate the do-it-yourself check in and bag tag (conveniently located half way between the hotel exit and the terminal building “manned” by wondrously unhelpful Lufthansa staff whose only English seemed to consist of odd guttural grunting noises). That in itself was no big surprise - Frankfurt Airport is designed exclusively for German speakers!
But it was the security check point that finally laid to rest any remaining belief that we might have had in German efficiency. They seemed to be trying out just one new body scanner (even young children had to be screened) which involved a large number of agents and very little activity. One weary traveler in front of us in the line said that it sometimes takes two hours to pass this point, so anything faster is a bonus
For once, I thought that I’d rate the screening area using the smiley face device that you see quite commonly in airports these days.
What a surprise....it wasn’t working!!!
So don’t be taken in by the shining glass and steel and myths of German efficiency. Frankfurt Airport is well placed in the race to the bottom of the list of worst airports in Europe...
And then just when we thought we’d experienced German efficiency at rock-bottom....at the gate shortly before boarding begins for the 11 hour flight to Los Angeles, the agent announces that they’d overbooked Business Class and were looking for one volunteer willing to be downgraded to Premium Economy, in exchange, wait for it....for a 500 Euro voucher (by general agreement, this was rather less than the actual difference in fare between the two classes of travel)! This bizarre offer was met with stunned incredulity by those waiting to board....and as far as we could see not a single volunteer eager to take advantage of this stupendously generous offer....hahahaha!!