Nick Art

Around a week ago I arrived from HKG in F, and decided to head to the FCL A before heading to the FCT. Big mistake. 0/10 Would not recommend. Go to the FCT directly.

I pride myself in never having to open my bags at security (except for the occasional random bomb test, which, when i‘m traveling with my military backpack, leads to funny situations).
There were hardly any people in line but the whole ordeal took ages. Keep in mind this is the J/F line.
The weird body scanner thing beeped with everyone and everybody was being sent to secondary screening. Same with the bags. Not one bag did they let through uncheck.
They had issues with my camera lenses and with my laptop charging cable, which I apparently need to take out of my bag together with the tablet and laptop. (I‘ve never done so and never heard that rule before and I‘m not planning on doing so in the future, except in FRA).

In the end I‘ve probably spent a good 40 minutes there mostly just waiting. At every other airport we’d have been through in 5 minutes max. Since we hadn‘t too much time left then +1 was too stressed to head to the FCT and in the brief visit of the FCL A I even forgot to collect my rubber duck.

Bloody ridiculous.

oliver2002

It seems they are testing new procedures, if you have only one piece of handbaggage you get a separate lane:

The situation NR witnessed was because the traditional area had a power outage:

oliver2002

Complaints submitted by email to the bupol FRA take 4-6 weeks to respond to:

Carpacchio

They are taking M&M response times as a benchmark...
At least you don't have to send a fax.

chris63

Thats FRA, security & or immigration lines can be overwhelmed, only safe course of action is to head to FCT

fransknorge

Mmmhh not sure, I understood NR this situation has been in place since 4 weeks.

oliver2002

No their point was that on Monday the old security stations were shutdown due to a power outage.

fransknorge

I agree, but that did not create the situation NewbieRunner saw, as I observed the same everytime I went at FRA in the last 4 weeks. Or am I missing something ?

oliver2002

No, the new flow is permanent (for now) to provide more stations. This flow was created as a result of BuPo, Fraport and Lufthansa meeting earlier this year. The stations being down on monday was because of the power outage.

fransknorge

Gotcha, thanks

exbayern

Completely jet lagged (via flight from excellent security as always MUC ) but if I read that correctly, it refers to the section at the very far right where they sometimes open extra security lanes around midday. They are often shielded off with screens.

I do wonder why when using the F/*G security lanes at MUC on the far right, there are not people being re-searched like with the same frequency as FRA. Perhaps we have fewer Tempos, and fewer pleats, and sweat less at MUC?!

oliver2002

Sorry the MUC security false positives are a joke too. Last week it didn't like the fact that I have a full sleeve undershirt.

Kleffen

If I land in Fra from US and it pulls into one of the Z gates, do I have to go through security to get to the A gates?

last time I was in Fra I came from India and landed at Z gates, and I had to go through security to get to A gates.
However, I remember I landed once from US at Z, and didn’t have to go through security, only passport.

Does the country of departure determine whether it’s security, or is the entire thing random?

NYC1

Right. No security (only passports) because you're coming from the US, which is considered "clean".

mozilla

During my last transit I was transferring and had no security, but while passing I also noticed the exit in A towards the SkyLine - the exit guarded with a staff member who assumes you don't know where you are going notwithstanding the clear signage - was roped off with a sign saying that it was out of use.

Hope they're just remodeling/renovating that area and they're not doing away with the station. I've always been concerned with the very low foot traffic in this station, probably not because of lack of organic demand but because FRA advertises it so badly. The exit with the guard - when in use - doesn't look too inviting to use either, if you didn't check the sign you'd assume it was a staff-only exit.