I have never been to Frankfurt am Main. No, that is not true. I was very often in Frankfurt am Main but always on the airport never in the town. I wish the people of Frankfurt from the bottom of my heart that their town is totally different from the airport which is a disgrace.
No matter at which gate I am arriving it is located directly in or beside a constructing area. Meanwhile this airport as to be a completely rambling ludicrous architectural monstrosity which has to be extended and extended – probably a sort of curse. Instead of The House Of The Seven Gables it is The Building Of The Seventy Constructing Areas. The long lonely corridors are even more frightening. Turned wrong once and you are lost forever. I don’t want to know how many people who are officially declared as "missing persons" just wanted to change plane at Frankfurt airport and lost their way never to be seen again.
No matter at which gate I am arriving it is furthest from the gate I am departing. I believe they have a software that calculates the longest way for every passenger. After all that’s how the people can enjoy all the constructing areas and maze-like corridors leading into eternal oblivion. Last time the "journey" from the arrival gate to the airplane to Argentina was so long, I believed I had already arrived in South America when I finally came to the departure gate. Furthermore the Frankfurt airport organizes a gate lottery. I didn’t win until now because the gate number on my boarding pass is never identical with the number of the departure gate. Often it isn’t even identical with the gate number shown on the monitors. This irritates not only passengers. While sitting in front of gate 21 to get the plane to Vienna I was asked several times in Spanish if the flight to Barcelona will departure from here. Therefore I went to the lady behind the desk at gate 21: "Excuse me, flight XY123 to Vienna should departure from gate 21. Is this true?" She answered: "You have to ask at gate 21." Although she was shocked when I told her that this was gate 21 she could figure out that I had to go to gate 17. Nevertheless despite these conditions I don’t recommend using hiking boots at the Frankfurt airport.
No matter to which gate I have to go I have to deal with security who is as cumbersome as unfriendly. Not even US-airports make such an effort. Once a staff member classified my old bare black leather loafers as extremely dangerous and insisted they had to be scanned separately, which elicited incredulous head-shaking among the other security staff. The latest highlight is the fully automated passport control. It takes five times longer than the conventional one, provided it is working. After I tried several times in vain I called the staff’s attention to it. The man who had sent me to the lock declared: "Yes, it is working!" I was lucky this happened in front of the first door. In the lock next to me a man was trapped between two doors. I assume he is still stuck in the lock, which as we were told is working. The two gentlemen who had to control my passport by hand behaved as if I had destroyed the so well working lock. One ignored me completely because he was very busy with his mobile phone. The other asked very harsh what I wanted. Showing him my opened passport was obviously a too subtle clue. Of course when I was leaving I had to excuse me for disturbing them while doing nothing.
Dear people of Frankfurt, I really hope your town differs totally from your airport.
