It's a remote stand.
Pax are bused from/to the plane.
You'll see it a lot for intra-Europe, less for intercontinental.
Originally Posted by
hockey7711
It usually parks at the A or Z gates if I remember correctly.
Z. Z and A are in the same terminal building, but A is one floor while Z is on the floor above A (or 2 floors above A, I believe there's a utility floor in between). Both floors have an identical layout and share the same gate infrastructure. The difference is that Z is used when a non-Schengen flight docks while A is used when a Schengen flight docks. Schengen and non-Schengen pax cannot mix, hence the arrangement with the different floors. You'll always encounter border control when changing floors from A to Z or vice versa. Other EU airports often keep non-Schengen and Schengen in different terminal buildings (horizontal separation), FRA uses vertical separation instead.
