Stuttgart Airport sits on the Filder plateau about 13 km south of the city, directly beside the A8 and the exhibition grounds. A private transfer meets you in arrivals, tracks your flight, and runs door to door at a price fixed before you travel.
The price is agreed before you book. No meter, no surge pricing.
About the airport
Stuttgart is the airport most shaped by the city below it. The centre lies in a steep basin and the airport sits on the Filder plateau above it, which is why the 13 km road distance is only 10 km as the crow flies and why the drive is a descent rather than a straight run. The topography is not a detail here — it is why journey times into the city are less predictable than the distance suggests.
The A8 passes immediately north, connecting Karlsruhe, Ulm, Augsburg and Munich, and the B27 drops into the city. Messe Stuttgart is next door — an adjacency that decides the whole calendar here, because a fair week fills the road, the terminals and the taxi rank at the same hour.
There are four terminals in a row, each with its own check-in: Terminal 1 for Eurowings and Turkish Airlines, Terminal 2 for Lufthansa and Star Alliance, Terminal 3 for TUIfly and KLM, and Terminal 4 for holiday charter. They stand along one road and are interconnected airside, so a drop-off at the wrong one costs a short walk rather than a journey — which is not true at Frankfurt or Munich. Arrivals are on level 2 throughout, with one asymmetry that catches people out: Terminal 2 handles departures only. It has no arrivals hall, so a Lufthansa passenger who checked in there on the way out comes back to Terminal 1 or 3.
The region behind the airport matters more than the city in front of it. Baden-Württemberg is Germany’s densest concentration of engineering and automotive industry, and almost none of it is in Stuttgart proper: Böblingen, Sindelfingen, Ludwigsburg, Esslingen, Reutlingen, Tübingen and Heilbronn are where the work is. That produces a great deal of business travel to addresses no rail line serves directly.
Getting to and from the airport
The S-Bahn runs from under the terminals into the Hauptbahnhof and, for one person going to central Stuttgart, it is faster than the road and much cheaper — take it, and take it especially during a fair, when the road is the worst part of the trip.
A car earns its price on the region rather than the city. Journeys to Böblingen, Sindelfingen, Ludwigsburg, Reutlingen, Tübingen or Heilbronn are exactly the kind that look short on a map and turn into two changes on rail, usually ending at a station some distance from an industrial park. For a business trip with a fixed meeting time, that chain is the risk.
Exhibition traffic is the other case, and it is the one where a price fixed in advance matters most. Messe Stuttgart is next to the airport, which sounds convenient and stops being so during a large fair: the same short stretch of road carries every arriving delegate at the same hour. A booked vehicle at an agreed price is immune to both the queue and the surge, and it goes to the specific hall.
Where your driver meets you
Your driver meets you at the terminal your flight arrives at, taken from the flight number you give at booking, holding a name sign inside arrivals. Stuttgart has four terminals standing in a row along a single road with their own check-in areas, so being met at the wrong one costs a short walk rather than a transfer ride — a useful margin of safety when a gate changes late. Flights are tracked, and 60 minutes of free waiting after touchdown covers passport control and baggage reclaim on a normal arrival.
Fleet
Every class includes the same service — flight tracking, meet and greet, waiting time and a fixed price. What changes is the space.
Top of the range
3 passengers / 2 bags
Mercedes-Benz S-Class or similar
A flagship saloon — the long-wheelbase, rear-seat-first kind. Booked for board-level guests, client collection and the journeys where the car is part of the impression.
The default for work travel
3 passengers / 2 bags
Mercedes-Benz E-Class or similar
An executive saloon with room to work, quiet enough to take a call, and a boot built for checked luggage rather than weekend bags. The class most corporate accounts book by default.
The sensible one
3 passengers / 2 bags
Toyota Corolla Hybrid or similar
A clean, current saloon with a professional driver. Everything that matters — flight tracking, meet and greet, a fixed price — is included; you are simply not paying for a badge.
Groups and real luggage
7 passengers / 7 bags
Mercedes-Benz V-Class or similar
Seven seats, a boot that takes seven cases, and a sliding door that makes loading at the kerb straightforward. The class families and small teams actually need.
Up to sixteen
16 passengers / 16 bags
For conference groups, wedding parties and trade-fair teams moving together. Quoted as one fixed price for the whole group rather than per seat.
Routes
| Destination | Distance | Journey time | From |
|---|---|---|---|
| Stuttgart Hauptbahnhof | 17 km | 24 min | €52 |
| Reutlingen | 28 km | 26 min | €70 |
| Ludwigsburg | 45 km | 37 min | €97 |
| Pforzheim | 52 km | 46 min | €108 |
| Burg Hohenzollern | 57 km | 51 min | €116 |
| Erlebnispark Tripsdrill | 72 km | 59 min | €140 |
| Heilbronn | 75 km | 1h | €145 |
| Karlsruhe | 81 km | 1h 01 | €155 |
| Karlsruhe Hauptbahnhof | 82 km | 1h 01 | €156 |
| Ulm | 84 km | 1h 01 | €159 |
| Ulm Hauptbahnhof | 84 km | 1h 02 | €159 |
| Messe Karlsruhe | 87 km | 1h 02 | €164 |
| Legoland Deutschland | 105 km | 1h 11 | €193 |
| Heidelberg | 128 km | 1h 26 | €230 |
| Mannheim | 144 km | 1h 42 | €255 |
| Ludwigshafen | 146 km | 1h 41 | €259 |
| Augsburg | 155 km | 1h 42 | €273 |
| Strasbourg | 155 km | 1h 53 | €273 |
| Gare de Strasbourg | 160 km | 1h 53 | €281 |
| Würzburg | 168 km | 1h 48 | €294 |
| Darmstadt | 182 km | 2h 06 | €316 |
| Freiburg im Breisgau | 208 km | 2h 15 | €358 |
| Frankfurt am Main | 212 km | 2h 25 | €364 |
| Offenbach | 219 km | 2h 26 | €375 |
| Zürich | 220 km | 2h 36 | €377 |
| Saarbrücken | 221 km | 2h 38 | €379 |
| Mainz | 223 km | 2h 27 | €382 |
| Munich | 224 km | 2h 24 | €383 |
| Wiesbaden | 224 km | 2h 25 | €383 |
| Ingolstadt | 224 km | 2h 38 | €383 |
| Nuremberg | 232 km | 2h 35 | €396 |
| Fürth | 237 km | 2h 39 | €404 |
Prices shown are the starting fare for this route and include tolls and airport access charges. Your exact price is confirmed before you book.
City to city
Journeys that never touch the airport, priced the same way: a measured road distance between the two city centres and a fare fixed before you travel. Every one of these pages says plainly when the train is the better buy.
Straight answer
For one person with hand luggage going to central Stuttgart, take the S-Bahn. It runs from under the terminals, it is cheaper, and because the road descends into a basin it is often faster too — during a trade fair week it is not close. Where a car changes the picture is everything outside the city: Böblingen, Sindelfingen, Ludwigsburg, Reutlingen, Tübingen and Heilbronn are short on a map and long by rail, and an industrial park is not a station. Book a car for those, for groups, for early departures, and for the exhibition grounds during a fair — where the advantage is not speed but a price and a vehicle that were both settled weeks earlier.
At the other end
Stuttgart sits in a bowl with vineyards running down into it — there are working vines inside the city boundary, which is true of almost nowhere else this size. It is also a car city and entirely unembarrassed about it: two of the best marque museums in the world are here, at opposite ends of the same valley.
A double-helix building in Untertürkheim that you ride to the top of and walk down through, following the whole history of the motor car from an 1886 three-wheeler. The building is as good as the collection.
At the other end of the city in Zuffenhausen, and a different proposition — smaller, whiter, sharper, and mostly about racing. Doing both in one day is possible and is a lot of car.
The city's main square, with the Neues Schloss on one side, and a short walk away James Stirling's Staatsgalerie extension — a building that argued about postmodernism in 1984 and still wins.
A zoo and botanical garden on one site in a Moorish-revival park, which is a combination Germany has nowhere else. It is a genuinely good botanical garden that happens to have elephants in it.
Business travel
Most of what a company needs from a transfer is not a discount — it is knowing the number before the journey, and knowing somebody will be standing there holding the right name. Both are how this service already works.
Name a colleague, a client or a candidate as the passenger and put your own address on the confirmation. The driver holds their name at arrivals; the booking, the changes and the receipt stay with you.
The fare is fixed before you book, so it goes into an approval or onto an expense claim as a known number rather than an estimate. Traffic on the day changes the journey, never the amount.
Flight tracking moves the pickup with the aircraft, and the driver waits inside arrivals with a name board rather than texting from a car park. Someone you are trying to impress should not have to find anybody.
A group that outgrows a van is quoted as the combination of vehicles that actually seats it, priced per car and confirmed as one booking — not turned away at the vehicle list.
If your company moves people through this airport more than occasionally, it is worth a conversation rather than a form. Tell us the routes and the volume and we will tell you plainly whether we are the right operator for it.
What is included
Agreed in full before you book. Traffic, tolls and airport charges are already in it — the meter does not exist.
We watch the flight number you give us. Land early or three hours late and the pickup moves with you, at no extra cost.
Your driver waits inside arrivals holding a name sign, helps with the luggage and walks you to the car.
Free waiting time after touchdown — enough for passport control and baggage reclaim without anyone watching a clock.
From the exact address to the exact address. Not to the nearest station, and not to a rank at the end of the road.
Infant, child and booster seats specified at booking. They are not charged as an extra.
Cancel up to 24 hours before pickup at no charge. Plans change; that is not something to be fined for.
Licensed, insured, English- and German-speaking, and briefed on your journey before they set off.
FAQ
The terminal your flight arrives at, taken from your flight number. Stuttgart has four, standing in a row along a single road with their own check-in areas, so being dropped at the wrong one costs a short walk rather than a transfer ride.
The exhibition grounds are immediately next to the airport, and transfers run to the specific entrance rather than to a general address. Because the price is fixed at booking, a fair week does not change what you pay — which is the week the taxi rank is emptiest.
60 minutes of free waiting time after touchdown, covering passport control and baggage reclaim on a normal arrival. Your flight is tracked, so a delay moves the pickup rather than costing you the booking.
Transfers run from Stuttgart Airport across Baden-Württemberg, including Böblingen, Sindelfingen, Ludwigsburg, Esslingen, Reutlingen, Tübingen and Heilbronn, each at its own fixed price. These are the journeys where the map is misleading and the rail connection is not direct.
Yes, each destination at its own fixed price. The northern Black Forest begins under an hour from the terminal, and the valley villages and spa towns are the sort of address where rail and bus connections run out well before you arrive. Winter arrivals with ski or walking luggage are a regular booking.
For a departure, the one your airline checks in at: Terminal 1 for Eurowings and Turkish Airlines, Terminal 2 for Lufthansa and Star Alliance, Terminal 3 for TUIfly and KLM, Terminal 4 for holiday charter. Coming back it is different, because Terminal 2 takes no arrivals at all — arriving flights come out at Terminal 1, 3 or 4. Tell us the airline and flight at booking and the driver is at the right door in both directions.
Guides
It has its own German word — Flughafenwechsel — which tells you how routinely it happens.
Germany runs the largest trade fair circuit in the world, and every stop on it has the same week-long transport failure.
At most of these airports the train wins. We would rather tell you which ones than sell you a car you do not need.
Uber exists here. It is a different product from the one on your phone at home, and the reason is a law rather than a business decision.
One is a business airport in a basin. The other is a low-cost field with a spa town's name and the Black Forest behind it.
A shuttle is a shared bus on a timetable. Eight German airports have a real one — and at three of them you should take it.
Airports
Ready when you are
Two addresses, a date, and how many of you there are. You will see the price for every vehicle class before you commit to anything.
