PlasticPilot.net

Good music is subjective - The Eagles are amongst my favorite, and I could not resist to use a line from Hotel California for the title of this post. Hopefully, judging the quality of an airport is not as subjective as music. Some factors, and particularly transit time, can even be measured. By the time this post will go online, I’ll be in London, so I’ll have a Frankfurt - Heathrow flight behind me, but also one ahead. Travelling through London City was not possible, so I’ll have to survive a trip through the hubs of Lufthansa and British Airways on the same leg. On the plus side, it’s a short visit, so I can fly with hand luggage only, which will save some time. I recently picked-up a colleague visiting me in Frankfurt. He did reach the public part of the airport 30 minutes after landing… also with hand luggage only. This could be hell…

To make the trip a bit more interesting, and possibly more enjoyable, I will change it into a little experiment, and measure my own transit time. I’ll note the times at which I’ll pass the different steps:

• Reaching the airport by train
• Time for check-in (hopefully quick because automated)
• Time to pass the security screening(s)
• Bus transfer, boarding time
• Taxi time, time at the holding point
• Taxi time after landing
• Time to reach the immigration booth
• Time to reach the public are
• Time to reach the train station

The scientist in me has to say that a single measure in each direction will certainly not be representative. True, but I like the concept of the experience, and if it’s as fun as I expect, I’ll try to generalize it to all my travels. If you’re an airport user as well, and want to join, I’ll be happy to relay your measurements here. Will my own trip be heaven or hell ? You’ll know more in the next days… and you’ll also know soon why I’m ready to face up a possibly harassing, despite short, trip.

Read more:

My personal views about Frankfurt airport and London City airport

Check the “Best European Airport” section in The Archives

PS: shortly after composing this post, I received an e-mail from Lufthansa, telling me that it was possible to make my check-in online. This went fine, and I now have a PDF boarding pass, I can go directly to the gate… I mean, through security.

As most airports, Frankfurt is in the middle of a gigantic motorway crossing. I already mentioned my “close encounter” with an Airbus on final approach which was perfectly lined-up with the A3 motorway. I got used to that now, but could still not make the perfect picture of it, mostly because I don’t like to drive 160 kilometers per hour and take photographs at the same time.

The A5 motorway, which has a North / South orientation also offers some possibilities, particularly on the short segment where it crosses the extended centerlines of runways 25 L/R at one kilometer of the thresholds only.

There is also a small road, the “Airport ring” that goes all around the airport, including a tunnel which goes below runway 18. I did not explored it… yet. I’m not turning into a spotter, but when there is a good opportunity, why not bring a good photo back ? This is exactly what happened last week-end. As the whole family was on the road to continue explore the region, Mrs. PlasticPilot took some good pictures of aircraft on short final.

Professional spotters would probably not found them of “top quality”, but remember that they’ve been taken from a moving car. It was not possible to stop and wait, so they’re pure opportunity photos. Given the particular perspectives they depict, I’m quite sure you’ll like them. Click on them to see the full-size version. Any comment is welcome.

Lufthansa on the bridge

Frankfurt Airport - 1000 m

An interesting perspective

If you don’t already know, I decided to change job and because of this, I became a low time pilot, and saved my IFR rating for one year.

The big leap is now behind me: this post is the first one I wrote from our new home in the Frankfurt area - using a temporary UMTS connection (sorry for non tech-savvy readers). The move and adrministrative work it created is not totally over now, but strangely the aeronautical part is not the hardest.

When I called the swiss Federal Office for Civil Aviation (FOCA), they simply told me I had to notify my new address to them, and that’s it. Thanks to JAA, no need to convert my swiss-issued JAA licence into a german-issued JAA licence.

The medical part is a bit more complex. JAAs don’t allow to change Aeronautical Medical Examiner (AME) without a good reason, but an international move is certainly a good one. But as I will probably go back to Geneva periodically, I can also arrange an examination with my swiss AME.

Flying again is not the highest priority, compared to set-up the house, see how the family runs on the new budget, give a good start to this new job (still air-transport related…), and get used to this new life.

However, if some of you have tips about flying in Germany, particularly in the southern Frankfurt area, I would greatly appreciate that. I already identified Egelsbach as a potential new homebase. You can send your suggestions in comments, or mail-me directly (address in “About me“) page.

Despite all these changes, I expect to keep the pace up with this blog, and I gathered new ideas during the few days I was not online (yes, you read some pre-written posts…), so stay on this frequency for more !