For $20 I was as close as I’ll ever get to the underbelly of the vast, sixstorey-high A380-800 airbus.

Our bus tour — which started with a rigorous security check even President Trump might approve of — took us around and beneath the sleek flying machines of some of the 80 airlines that fly into Frankfurt, out on to a runway, past massive and rather beautiful-looking hangers for the big birds, then stopped for a while as one plane after another arrived or departed.

From the outside and at a distance, Frankfurt Airport seems a quiet and orderly place, but more than 80,000 people work there and it is Germany’s largest employer. You can get a bit boggled by figures but some are impressive: there are 500 different companies and employers in the complex (yes, there’s even an on-site lawyer and dental clinic); runways are 4000m long; the A380 fuel tanks hold 320,000 litres and the airport’s depot has 10 tanks holding 186 million litres of jet fuel; there are 400 firefighters working four shifts . . . Frankfurt offers a number of interesting and time-filling tours, including a two-hour airport by night sunset option, a 100-minute fire department tour and even a birthday party tour for children.

If you’ve got time to spare and wonder what it must be like out there on the tarmac where people wear fluoro-jackets and huge noisecancelling headgear, a Frankfurt Airport bus tour takes you there and allows you to stare up at the enormous A380 and wonder, “How . . . ?”