Frankfurt airport (Frankfurt International Airport (FRA))

Member Name: polydeuces

Product:	Frankfurt International Airport (FRA)
Date:	07/08/08 (197 review reads)
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Frankfurt Airport must be one of the most depressing, boring airports in the world. It is rare for an airport to be architecturally inspiring but whoever designed Frankfurt airport seems to have aimed to squeeze every possible ounce of warmth and humanity out of the place.

When airports like this one are to be built it must be like manna from heaven to the suppliers of grey marble. There are 2 terminals, Terminal 1 is the main flying hub of Lufthansa and the second terminal known with subtle originality as Terminal 2 is used by some of the other international carriers including BA. As those who may have read my review of Lufthansa will know I hate Lufthansa. In fact I hate Lufthansa with a passion rarely seen in public. I therefore have to say the sight of this grey mausoleum which is Terminal 1, with banks of the po-faced jobsworths that Lufthansa call 'staff', is a vision of what hell must be like.
Let us consider for a moment the word 'impersonal'. Impersonal means cold, faceless, remote, dispassionate. All these descriptions and more aptly describe this dismal edifice. The huge high ceiling seems to be a metaphor for the emptiness of the experience flying out of or into Frankfurt is.

Wherever you go in the shops (average) the toilets (adequate) the seating (typically uncomfortable) or visit the bureau de change you are met with people who seem to wish they were somewhere else, seem to wish they were doing something else, anything else. The job selection process for people wishing to work at Frankfurt airport must include a test for whether you can be a smiling helpful assistant. And anyone who shows any remote chance of being so is rejected immediately.
There is a sky train which runs between the terminals. It glides silently in and along the tracks and is punctual to the second. There is no driver of course, that would be far too personal. In many parts of the terminals there are new cars parked about as advertisements but with no-one in them or near them it adds to the feeling that the place is a ghost town. As though the drivers had driven in by mistake realised what a place this was and ran away, and who could blame them. The bars are functional but have the same funereal atmosphere as the rest of the place.

Its just all too grim.

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