Travelling to the USA with Lufthansa and Lufthansa Express

I admit that when I tra­vel, I like to know what to expect. This is espe­ci­al­ly true for air tra­vel, whe­re a lot can go wrong any­way. When boo­king a flight inclu­ding Air­port Express Rail the­re were some draw­backs that are not obvious at first sight.

Outward journey

Luft­han­sa’s Air Rail Opti­on offers some impon­der­a­bles, espe­ci­al­ly when used for the first time. This starts with the fact that the train con­nec­tion recei­ves an LH num­ber that resem­bles a flight. The tra­vel docu­ments also men­ti­on a flight, alt­hough it is a train con­nec­tion.

Howe­ver, the LH num­ber can­not be found in the depar­tu­re plan of the Bun­des­bahn. It is the­r­e­fo­re almost impos­si­ble to check in advan­ce whe­ther a train is on time or not, as it is impos­si­ble to find out which ICE is used for this “Luft­han­sa flight”. Air Rail only means that cer­tain com­part­ments of a nor­mal ICE are reser­ved for air pas­sen­gers. With a litt­le luck, a search with Goog­le or Bing can spit out with which ICE the train jour­ney is car­ri­ed out.

Like­wi­se, at the sta­ti­on you can only see on the plat­form which train it is. On the lar­ge board, whe­re all depar­tures are lis­ted, an LH num­ber can­not be found. Howe­ver, both the trans­fer by train to the air­port and the flight its­elf are che­cked in at the same time, so that at least the track was indi­ca­ted. And it was only the­re that the first indi­ca­ti­ons were found that you were at the right place. Only on this track (in Colo­gne main sta­ti­on track 6) you can find hints, whe­re the train will stop and only the­re you could see on the score­board, at which ICE the Air Rail com­part­ments were loca­ted.

At the airport

When pas­sen­gers lea­ve the train in Frank­furt, the­re is a hall right at the tran­si­ti­on to the air­port whe­re lug­ga­ge can be che­cked in. This is quite prac­ti­cal becau­se you don’t have to car­ry it through the enti­re air­port. But the­re is a snag. It only appli­es to Luft­han­sa flights that are also ope­ra­ted by Luft­han­sa. If Luft­han­sa has com­mis­sio­ned an alter­na­ti­ve air­line for the flight, the air­line is sole­ly respon­si­ble for the bag­ga­ge and it can­not be che­cked in at this point.

Entering the USA

The USA is making a lot of publi­ci­ty that ent­ry has been sim­pli­fied at some air­ports by auto­ma­ting pass­port con­trol via ter­mi­nals. The­re is a small snag: Hard­ly any pas­sen­ger comes through this auto­ma­ted con­trol, so that 99% of all pas­sen­gers are sent to a coun­ter after all. This in turn means that you can sche­du­le a good hour to get through pass­port con­trols to get on U.S. ground (this only appli­es to non‑U.S. citi­zens.).

After all, the intro­duc­tion of the ESTA pro­ce­du­re has made things a lot easier. Now a ques­ti­on­n­aire is no lon­ger fil­led out in the air­craft, but online via a web­site. Howe­ver, the­re are fees of about 15 Euro (depen­ding on the exch­an­ge rate).

Return journey

Anyo­ne who thinks that on the return jour­ney it is the same as on the out­ward jour­ney is mista­ken. One could assu­me that if Luft­han­sa has rear­ran­ged a flight to ano­ther air­line (in this case United Air­lines) and the lug­ga­ge on the out­ward jour­ney is hand­led com­ple­te­ly by this air­line, this is also the case for the return flight and the return jour­ney. Fal­se.

Of cour­se I wai­ted at the bag­ga­ge carou­sel for my lug­ga­ge. But it did­n’t come. This alo­ne took a while. Tho­se who have built in litt­le time buf­fer here will be left out in the cold. Becau­se I was loo­king in vain for an employee of the air­line, so that he could give me infor­ma­ti­on, what could have hap­pen­ed with my lug­ga­ge. The nice gen­tle­men from Fra­port and Luft­han­sa unfort­u­na­te­ly could­n’t help me. And the­re is no United coun­ter for bag­ga­ge tra­cing.

So I tried my luck at the Air Rail Ter­mi­nal. But on the way the­re the­re is the next snag. At the begin­ning the ter­mi­nal is still sign­pos­ted, but at some point it ends and the­re is no fur­ther indi­ca­ti­on of a direc­tion. Tip: Now go in the direc­tion of the long distance train sta­ti­on. Once you have arri­ved at the long distance sta­ti­on, you will also get direc­tions to the Air Rail Ter­mi­nal.

Ano­ther tip: You should go to the rest­room at the air­port. The Air Rail Ter­mi­nal is loca­ted in a Deut­sche Bahn buil­ding and they don’t have rest­rooms like that. And I’m not tal­king about pay­ing com­pa­ra­tively high fees for it, the­re are sim­ply none.

At the bag­ga­ge cla­im of the Air Rail Ter­mi­nal, howe­ver, my pie­ce of lug­ga­ge could not be found eit­her. So I tur­ned to the employees the­re and clai­med as a litt­le white lie that the United employees had sent me direct­ly to this place to coll­ect my lug­ga­ge. After a few pho­ne calls, the Fra­port employees found out that it was in the cat­a­combs of the air­port and somehow nobo­dy knew whe­re it belon­ged. Final­ly it was trans­por­ted to the Air Rail Ter­mi­nal whe­re I could recei­ve it.

Back at the station

Howe­ver, at the sta­ti­on (this time the long-distance sta­ti­on at Frank­furt air­port) the­re was the pro­blem that I was only told the track. On the train sche­du­les, whe­re it is shown which wagon stops at which point of the plat­form, it was not shown whe­re the Luft­han­sa com­part­ments were loca­ted (in con­trast to the Colo­gne main sta­ti­on).

Sin­ce the flight was delay­ed, I missed the train. After all, I was auto­ma­ti­cal­ly trans­fer­red to ano­ther train whe­re I could check in online. Howe­ver, I could not be assi­gned a seat (i.e. Luft­han­sa over­boo­ked its com­part­ment and I was put on a wai­ting list) and the “boar­ding pass” dis­play­ed a wagon num­ber that did not exist.

To make mat­ters worse, once again all dis­plays on the ICE had fai­led when it final­ly arri­ved (after all, only 10 minu­tes late). But all train pas­sen­gers stood a bit hel­p­less in front of the train and nobo­dy real­ly knew whe­re to go. An obvious­ly usu­al con­di­ti­on with the train, which did not hap­pen to me for the first time, becau­se also the rail­way cowor­kers do not know what do next.

For­t­u­na­te­ly the ICE was not ful­ly boo­ked, so I cho­se some free place after the train left. When the­re’s more acti­vi­ty, it usual­ly does­n’t work.

Conclusion

Basi­cal­ly, the idea that air tra­vel­lers arri­ving at the air­port by train can check in and pick up their lug­ga­ge direct­ly at the sta­ti­on is a good one. Unfort­u­na­te­ly, the flow of infor­ma­ti­on does not work and the tra­vel­ler is not told what the pro­ce­du­re is like if the flight is not ope­ra­ted by Luft­han­sa, but by ano­ther air­line. It is well known that the rail­ways have such pro­blems with ICE trains that you have to plan suf­fi­ci­ent time buf­fers so that the trips can be car­ri­ed out wit­hout stress.

In my case, I was at the air­port three hours ear­lier on the out­ward jour­ney and could use it, becau­se the bag­ga­ge check inclu­ding the search for the right coun­ter as well as the secu­ri­ty check took about one hour. Also on my way back I had almost com­ple­te­ly used up the time buf­fer of two hours at the air­port in Frank­furt to get my lug­ga­ge.