Frankfurt Airport (FRA) is preparing for the XXII Winter Olympic Games (7-24 February) as national carrier Lufthansa steps up its services to the Black Sea city to 27 special non-stop flights to Sochi/Adler International Airport (AER) with a reduced flying time of 3.5 hours.

Lufthansa launched its first Sochi Olympic flight last week (24 January) and hopes that athletes, trainers, media, and sports fans globally will be use FRA as their hub of choice to attend the games.

The airport operated by Fraport, also has other airlines serving Sochi including Russia’s Aeroflot which launched its Frankfurt-Sochi route in February 2007, before the city won its Winter Olympics bid. It also has regular flights from FRA to its Moscow hub, where passengers can connect to AER.

Another Russian carrier, Orenair, will also started non-stop flights from 27 January while Rossiya has regular flights from FRA to its hub at St Petersburg’s Pulkovo Airport (LED), with onward connections to AER.

Most of Germany’s athletes will be flying via FRA to Sochi and the German Olympic team will get its official send-off from the airport on 4 February. Fraport has set up two special Winter Olympics check-in counters in Departures Hall B of Terminal 1 for the event. After the Winter Olympics, the Sochi 2014 Paralympic Winter Games follow from 7-16 March.