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I'm heading to India next week and have a connection in Munich, Germany. I made the mistake of booking a flight with only an hour and a half layover (freaking out!) and I'm wondering if I'll have to go through customs in Munich or if I can pass right on through.

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  • Just to make sure (in case it makes a difference) - what is your flight, if layover is in Munich? Where are you flying from before Munich?
    – Mark Mayo
    Commented Jan 15, 2013 at 5:47
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    Is your luggage going to be checked through, or will you have to collect it, queue up and check it in again?
    – Gagravarr
    Commented Jan 15, 2013 at 9:33
  • I transferred at Munich once (non-Schengen to Schengen country), and it was plenty of time. Only one sample though.
    – Bernhard
    Commented Jan 15, 2013 at 19:26
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    Heading to India from where? It matters whether your flights are domestic or not, i.e. whether you're starting from elsewhere in the Schengen area or not.
    – Gilles 'SO- stop being evil'
    Commented Jan 15, 2013 at 21:02
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    @RudyGunawan Frankfurt and Munich are night and day. 90 minutes is scary short in FRA and twice what you need in MUN
    – Kate Gregory
    Commented Mar 29, 2014 at 14:39

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Presuming you are arriving from a non-Schengen country then you will not need to pass through immigration in Munich. You will remain air-side, although you may need to go through security depending on which terminal you arrive in/depart from.

However even if you do need to clear immigration in Munich you'll find it very quick and easy (presuming you come from a country that does not require a Visa) - I don't recall ever having to wait more than a minute or two when passing through immigration in either Munich or Frankfurt. Security can be another story and can take a while to get through depending on how busy they are, but 90 minutes should be plenty of time as long as your inbound flight is on time or only slightly delayed.

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    Do you have an EU/EEA passport?
    – phoog
    Commented Nov 12, 2015 at 15:34
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It is interesting to me how different it is to transit in Munich and in Frankfurt. I have had 60 minute transits in Frankfurt that I made only by butting to the beginning of lines (showing people my boarding pass and begging them to let me go first) and running, and not getting to go to the bathroom or buy a drink, and still only just making the flight. But a 60 minute transit in Munich? I have done it many times (always a Schengen/non-Schengen transfer - Canada or the UK into Schengen, or Schengen headed out, so in addition to security there are passport lineups to deal with) and always seem to end up with 20 minutes to sit at the gate and drink the free coffee.

Munich is smaller than Frankfurt, I find the signage simpler to follow, and it's just less disorienting and crowded. The lines are shorter and perhaps the overall volume of passengers is less. Whatever the reason, I just don't transit through Frankfurt any more and I'm always happy to do so through Munich. A one-hour connection in Munich doesn't worry me, so I wouldn't be worried about your 90 minute one.

One disclaimer: this is if your flights are booked as a single ticket. If your incoming flight is significantly delayed you will misconnect. If your flights are booked as one ticket this is the airlines's problem and they'll take care of you. But if they are booked as separate tickets then you're just out of luck. In that case I would want a much longer connection (3 hours or more) to feel safe.

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    Free coffee? Now where did you get that?
    – Jan
    Commented Jun 15, 2016 at 17:50
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    @Jan - there is a long corridor that the gates are all in. There is another long corridor parallel to it. And there are many small corridors connecting the two, with bathrooms and suchlike. Many of these short corridors have counters with free coffee and (German) newspapers. Or at least they did last time I was there :-)
    – Kate Gregory
    Commented Jun 15, 2016 at 17:51
  • domestic IIRC - I was less interested in coffee on my out of Europe than on my way in
    – Kate Gregory
    Commented Jun 15, 2016 at 17:52
  • Yeah, no; Terminal 2 is Lufthansa and StarAlliance, T1 is everything else …
    – Jan
    Commented Jun 15, 2016 at 17:53
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    Ah, then T2, I'm a *A flyer for the most part
    – Kate Gregory
    Commented Jun 15, 2016 at 17:54
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Necromancing, in case anybody else has this problem.
I actually did this with a flight to and from Romania.

Both times, it was very tight.
Baggage was changed automatically.
But because I didn't have a biometric ID card, I had to stand in line for manual passport control, which took long time, because there were many people and ony one or two manual control points open.

It will be very tight, but it will work.
The problem is, Munich airport is quite large.
You'll drive around the airport quite long when you arrive, and then have to go through passport control.
With 1.5 hours in between flights, you will board about 5 minutes before boarding time ends.

But if your flight arrives late, you'll need to make yourself noticed and use the express lanes.

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  • IIRC, the terminal is a smallish one, but passenger's are (mostly) bussed to/from the airplanes, so there is the transfer time from the plane to the terminal. I would still not be concerned with a 90 minute layover. But this is IMHO.
    – CGCampbell
    Commented Nov 12, 2015 at 14:39
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I made a trip through Munich Airport from USA to Israel and on the way back. I had 2 hours to walk through from landing to the next gate in the same terminal. It was a bit rough for me because of mobility issues. We had to walk through a controlled part of the airport and then through a customs/border check before entering a waiting area for the flight from Munich to Israel. If you do not have mobility issues, you should be fine in 90 minutes as you will already have passed basic airport security in Frankfurt and be inside the airport security lines in Munich. The customs/passport checkpoint I passed through was only for those who were on that flight.

So I think you will be fine as Lufthansa planned everything via their booking, and if they made a mistake, they will need to rebook your connection.

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    Please do not post (almost) identical answers, and it is not a good habit to post answers with the same information to older questions which already have good answers.
    – Willeke ♦
    Commented Mar 31 at 6:02
  • Hi, I didn't realize how old the questions were because it was suggested to me by some algorithm to post some answers. If you think it's not worth anything, go ahead and delete it, and also maybe update the algorithm so it's not suggesting that I post on old answers. This is literally my 2nd day of being on Substack. I'm not sure how fun it is, Willeke.
    – Visible-Scientist-46
    Commented Apr 1 at 6:10
  • My other thought is that no one posted the Munich Airport website and maybe someone will find that helpful.
    – Visible-Scientist-46
    Commented Apr 1 at 6:19

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