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What is the shortest distance Airport to Germany From San Francisco considering I will take a train to Cologne from there.

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There are only two German airports that have non-stop service from San Francisco: Frankfurt and Munich. Frankfurt is closer by about 170 miles. The official flight time difference is not meaningful: 11h 10m vs 11h 15m. Random factors, like wind, weather, gate traffic, taxiing, etc is going to make more of a difference than the actual distance.

Technically Hamburg is the closest German international airport, but there is no non-stop service, so it's not the shortest flight.

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    I'm pretty sure that the OP meant to distance between Cologne and the airport, not the distance to San Francisco.
    – DCTLib
    Commented Nov 15, 2019 at 12:34
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    @DCTLib It reads the opposite to me, but there's definitely some ambiguity there.
    – simon at rcl
    Commented Nov 15, 2019 at 14:39
  • I read it as, What is the shortest complete route to get to Cologne from San Fransisco, aka the shortest train journey + plane journey to their destination.
    – Dean Meehan
    Commented Nov 15, 2019 at 15:43
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    In that case, Frankfurt will beat all other airports (except CGN and DUS), due to its direct long-distance-train connections to Cologne, with a train ride time of about 1 hour from FRA airport train station to Cologne central station.
    – dunni
    Commented Nov 15, 2019 at 16:07
  • Frankfurt is much closer to Cologne than Hamburg.
    – quarague
    Commented Mar 16, 2023 at 14:18
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The most commonly used airports for such a trip are:

  • Frankfurt International Airport (FRA)
  • Dusseldorf International Airport (DUS)

Both are served by US-American Airlines from the US. There are also non-stop flights to Frankfurt, which you may want to prefer.

Airport Cologne-Bonn (CGN) is actually closer, but less commonly used for such trips. Trying to use it for a transatlantic trip typically leads to higher airfares in my experience.

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    One should maybe add, that all three airports have their own train station with direct, fast connections to cologne, so any of those can be reached in less than an hour. The high-speed train to FRA tends to be a bit more expensive, but I guess compared to the length and cost of a transcontinental flight, those small differences do not really matter.
    – mlk
    Commented Nov 15, 2019 at 16:12
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One option you can consider is that Lufthansa has a partnership with Deutsche Bahn, the German train operator. You can go to Lufthansa.com and make a single booking consisting of a flight from San Francisco to Frankfurt (operated by either United or Lufthansa) and a train ticket from Frankfurt to Cologne, with a guaranteed connection in case your flight is delayed.

In this example, "flight" LH3612 is actually a train from the airport to Cologne, but your air ticket is valid for this train:

Screenshot of Lufthansa booking itinerary

You'll have to research whether this is cost-effective based on your travel dates. For some random dates I tried next February, the combined air+rail journey to Cologne was $10 cheaper than just the flight to Frankfurt alone, so there could be some savings booking together.

There's also a separate program called Rail&Fly. With this, you book a flight to Frankfurt (or elsewhere in Germany) and then click the "Buy train tickets" button to purchase deeply discounted train tickets to/from any station in Germany valid for the dates on or near your flight dates.

yellow "Buy train tickets" button

You can check all of these options to see which is cheapest and/or more convenient for your travel dates.

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Frankfurt Airport has a long distance train station attached to the airport, with a direct link to Cologne. The train Frankfurt - Cologne is pretty much the fastest train run in the country. It is one of the few places in Germany where the ICE actually runs at 300km/h (I have a picture to prove it!), and there is only 1 stop in between, the trip takes about an hour.

Munich is 3 hours away from Cologne, at least, and you are still 45 minute away from Munich station, the airport is quite a distance out of the city in the middle of nowhere.

You can check the train times on www.bahn.de

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  • I'll just add to this that the trip down the Rhine valley on the Lufthansa Express is incredibly picturesque -- lots of churches, castles, and natural scenery.
    – Kevin Troy
    Commented Nov 15, 2019 at 20:57
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    True, but the direct high-speed train from Frankfurt to Cologne cuts through the hinterlands behind the Rhine Valley. If you wan to take the scenic route, you need to take the local train to Mainz and then from then a train to Cologne. The whole trip takes about 1.5-2hours, and is definitely more scenic. You could also take a slow train (or a boat for part of the way, in the middle) from Mainz to Cologne, that might even make it worth it, would take about 3-4 hours. Frankfurt Airport has 2 stations, one for the local train and one long-distance. Both next to each other.
    – Leander Conradie
    Commented Nov 15, 2019 at 21:01
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    The Lufthansa Express stopped running in 1993...
    – Krist van Besien
    Commented Nov 16, 2019 at 8:53
  • I remember having a Tom Tom telling me I was exceeding the speed limit by 170 km/h (about 110 mph). It didn’t quite realise I was on a train.
    – gnasher729
    Commented Mar 16, 2023 at 17:37
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Alternatives for Frankfurt, which has the best connection to Cologne, are Amsterdam (AMS, Schiphol airport, the Netherlands) and Paris, (CDG, Charles de Gaulle, France) and likely a couple more I did not check.
The travel time from the USA to Europe will be about the same, maybe a bit less, but not a lot.

Both cities I mentioned have direct trains to Cologne and train stations right at the airport, but neither airport seem to have those direct trains, you will have to change between trains if you fly there. So while it may be a good alternative if you have trouble finding well priced tickets to Germany, it will not be better than a good second place.

I used the Bahn.de site for the train information, they will also sell German and international train tickets online.

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