The time when the Frankfurt airport group Fraport and Deutsche Lufthansa exchanged verbal tips when something didn't go well is said to be over.

The airport operator and its largest user have set up a joint venture.

After a summer in which passengers were annoyed by queues and delays, Fraport and Lufthansa want to work together to improve service and processes for customers - and reduce waiting times.

Timo Kotowski

Editor in Business.

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The first visible measure taken by the Fra-Alliance joint venture is that from now on the waiting time before security checks in Frankfurt will be displayed in the Lufthansa app so that travelers can prepare for it.

But it shouldn't stop there.

The new partnership was planned for a long time and was announced in spring 2020.

However, two years passed before the company was founded, which is explained by the obtaining of permits and examinations under competition law.

At Germany's second largest airport in Munich, the airport company and Lufthansa have had a joint venture for a long time, through which they even jointly operate a terminal.

Reduce distances and waiting times

The Fra Alliance does not go that far, but Fraport board member Pierre Dominique Prümm spoke of an "important signal for the medium and long-term perspective of Frankfurt Airport".

Jens Ritter, head of the Lufthansa brand, announced that he would be moving forward with necessary projects "more strongly and more focused than before".

In the past, criticism was also linked to the announcement that individual aircraft would be relocated to Munich, but Frankfurt remained by far Lufthansa's most important hub.

Now there is closer coordination for the conversion in Terminal 1, which mainly uses Lufthansa.

Check-in counters are currently being modernized there.

The partners are also planning a more intensive exchange of data, which passengers should also benefit from.

One example is that important transfer connections are planned in such a way that passengers have to take shorter routes from the feeder to the connecting flight.

In Frankfurt it is still sometimes necessary for travelers who have already passed the security check at the point of departure to have to go through it again before continuing their flight.

In the future, this will no longer apply to more than one million passengers a year.