Certainly not. There are two RHEINBAHN ticket machines on every platform in the airport. .

I could not agree more.

I believe, however, that this is more "philosophical" issue. In this country we hate 100% control, we hate gates and borders and we believe very much in people being honest. Given that we put trust in everybody using the system and punish these misusing the trust (albeit the chance of getting caught is pretty low).

The same is true for every regional train. On probably 90% of the trains (and in particular on the S-Bahns) you will not see any conductor. Most (95+ percent) people, however, do buy a ticket or hold a pass.

Four stops:

C - A/B - Parkhaus - Mainline Station.

But you are certainly right. :D

I agree with you entirely. I arrived a few years ago with an Inter-Rail ticket expecting to get the "free" shuttle to the airport. Only on the return journey did I realise I should have paid for the ride. It is (or was at the time) not at all clear.

The fault must lie to a large extent with DB (and I'm a big DB fan) - surely they should indicate on their website that an additional charge may be payable to get to the airport from the "Airport" station? Presumably they don't, for fear - as someone said upthread - of losing further custom at an under-utilised station.

Comparisons with the US are a red herring - this is Germany, for heaven's sake, with one of the best integrated public transport systems in the world. Surely it is not beyond the wit of DB to do a deal with the VRR?

I agree with you, sure. DB has however a deal with VRR and others. You can buy a long distance ticket including local transport, see post #34. You simply need to do it. We don't live a country telling and ordering everybody how to deal with certain issues but we expect that people take responsibility and get informed.

That´s different in my eyes. Transportation between terminals is more or less always free, also in CDG, STN, LHW and so on. Skytrain is from an extern point (train station) to the airport.

Well, you have been required to show your ticket to bus drivers in DUS for a couple of years now.

Agree with your point about it being a philosophical issue, but also agree with others that the Skytrain issue is pretty confusing. It really is a German thing to have a rulebook about which ticket might or might not be eligible for a free ride on the Skytrain. Especially since the English website of DB sells the nonstop ICE ticket from Cologne to "Düsseldorf Flughafen" - not Fernbahnhof, Jamaica Station or anything else. Reasonable for an unsuspecting foreigner to believe it's part of the actual airport.

I believe that this is one of the reasons why the requirement of a ticket is not seriously enforced.

The Skytrain was not built with the Airport's (Shareholder City of Düsseldorf and indirectly a JV of Hochtief and Aer Rianta) money but entirely with the taxpayers' money. Given that it had to be part of the public transport system in the state and given that it can be used with all tickets good for public transport in the region (as regional and local public transport is under the supervision of the state and subsidiesed by the state).

Tickets of the long distance operators like Deutsche Bahn are not good for regional transport not operated by Deutsche Bahn, so they are not good for the Skytrain.

Probably 95% and more of the pax do not care because they either continue on a regional service and need a regional ticket anyway, hold a pass or a Bahncard (giving you free local transport on long distance tickets) or have another instrument allowing to use the Skytrain. Several others are buying a ticket and we probably survive the few fare dodgers

I'll just leave this here - ticket machines abroad and in Germany:

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com...9b5133926e.jpg

ROTFL

+ 1^^

In SYD you have to pay for the train between domestic and international terminals.

That explains the portacabins, floodlights and police standing in the middle of the A93 at Kiefersfelden pretending to secure the border, does it?

Heathrow Free Travel Zone?

I think it's a rip-off to be charged to move around within an airport's perimeter. Would you expect to pay extra for a car rental shuttle if you weren't leaving the airport, just because the car rental location is too far to walk?

First off, thanks for all the good info folks. I'm flying into DUS in a few weeks with a Eurail pass and had no idea if the Skytrain was included. Now I know it isn't!

I have a follow-up question. I'm going straight to Cologne from DUS. Since the rail pass is good on the S-bahn, per your info, I would like to take the S11 into Düsseldorf and connect from there. But I'll need to activate the pass first. Does the S-bahn station in the airport have a manned ticket counter somewhere where I could probably do this? Backup plan is to pay the Skytrain fare and activate the pass at the Düsseldorf Flughafen.

No staffed counter in DUS for S-bahn. It's basically a train platform under the airport with ticket machines to buy tickets.