Natürlich, passengers with an EU passport can use the Immigration Autogates, whereas other passengers including myself had to wait in line to have our passports inspected by the Immigration Officers. There was no such thing as a "Passenger Information Card" to fill in, which was really surprising as this is a common practice in other countries.
If you are a tourist, the Immigration Officer would like to know the duration of your stay. If you are studying in Germany, you must have a German Student Visa attached in your passport, which has a validity of 90 days only (Reference: How to apply for a German Student Visa).The duration of your course will definitely exceed this, hence you should always have your Zulassungsbescheid (Letter of Admission) ready to present to the Immigration Officer upon request. Unsurprisingly, everyone went through the Green Lane after collecting their luggage and surprisingly, there were no Custom Officers conducting random spot-checks!
If you land in Terminal 2, please take note:
1) You do NOT need a luggage trolley! The luggage trolley costs 1 Euro and the nearest Airport exit is not even 2 minutes walk from the Customs checkpoint. There may be some used trolleys at the exits which you could take if necessary.
2) If you plan to travel by train to other cities, the Bahnhof (train station) is in Terminal 1. You can take a free shuttle bus to get to Terminal 1. The bus arrived and departed on time, of course. German punctuality!
Upon arrival at Terminal 1, you would face a dilemma - "to take an escalator up, or down, that is the question". Das ist eine schwere Entscheidung! (That is a heavy/hard decision). Heavy because you are most likely burdened by over 30kg of luggage, and hard because you have not the slightest clue on which one to choose.
Prior to arriving in Germany, I have conducted some research on how to get to my destination city from Frankfurt Airport by train. I already knew that I should be looking out for Regional Trains, or Intercity Express (ICE), and that my destination is the central train station of my city (Hauptbahnhof or Hbf), after which I will arrive at my accommodation. Apparently that is NOT sufficient, at least if one does not wish to drag one's luggage all over the place.
This is one area I feel Frankfurt Airport is lacking; simple guides and designated facilitators for tourists who just want to commute to other cities from Frankfurt via train or bus.
You will take an escalator up if your train is departing from platforms (Gleis) 4,5,6 and 7, whereas you will take an escalator down if your train is departing from platforms (Gleis) 1,2 and 3. There are ticket machines (Fahrkarten) both upstairs and downstairs. I made a wild guess and took the escalator up, but found out later that my train was going to arrive at platform 3, which was underground :(
A picture of the ticket machine:
In order to save yourself some trouble, I strongly recommend using this Deutsche Bahn Train Timetable to get a good idea of the train service before coming to Germany.
A few important things to look out for before using this tool:
1) Train station nearest to your destination/accomodation. The Hauptbahnhof/Hbf (Central Train Station) of your destination city may not always be the closest station to your accommodation.
2) Your time of arrival in Frankfurt Airport. You should look for trains to your destination city that will depart at least 1.5 hours after you land because you need some time to clear Immigration, Customs, luggage collection and maybe take a shuttle bus if applicable.
3) Location of platforms. As mentioned earlier, UP - 4,5,6,7 ; DOWN - 1,2,3
Once you have identified a few possibilities, take note of the respective platform number (Gleis) of each train service. This will allow you to immediately head towards the correct platform and purchase your train ticket when you arrive in Germany.
Purchasing a train ticket can be a little tricky if you do not know German at all, here are a few things you should know:
1) You are buying a ticket for an adult (Erwachsene), not Kinder.
2) You would most likely prefer not changing trains. If so, make sure that Umsteigen column value is 0.
3) You may prefer a Class 2 ticket because it is more economical. Look out for the big "2" label on the train coach when boarding.
Here is a screenshot of one of the stages of buying a train ticket. Some information have been redacted:
Endlich, I had a valid ticket and knew exactly which platform I should be waiting at. The underground train platforms at Frankfurt could use a new coat of paint and did not look as good as the underground LRT stations in Malaysia. Nevertheless, the trains were all pünktlich (punctual), as expected. The Regional Train is impressive, equipped with tables, washrooms, squeaky clean and barely any external noise could be heard as the train sped through the countryside and cities......
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