Google Earth just updated the maps in Germany including Frankfurt International airport.
Picture taken on a Saturday in June, but not a single aircraft visible at the gates.
Some passenger bridge positions look like they are expanded to get them dry in the sun
It’s not a conspiracy, it’s to do with how they put together the 3d imagery. You can see the same effects on roads in 3d which are largely absent of traffic and people. They use imagery from multiple passes and in some cases laser scans, and these might not be taken at the same time or even on the same day. The result is that when the data is stitched together, items that appear in one data set and not another are screened out and don’t appear in the final images.
If you switch between 2d and 3d in google maps (click on the globe in the corner) you can see that there are many more cars in the 2d version than the 3d one.
Here’s a partially removed aircraft that shows in the 2d, but not in the 3d:
I do not agree that it’s just because how they put pictures together. Then we would see at least some at the gates. And i am not talking about this partially visible aircraft, i have seen it as well.
I have more the assumption they removed the aircraft from the gates.
Well yes they obviously made a choice to do so but that’s not a conspiracy, just a design choice. I’m sure they could have processed the data differently to display aircraft (as they have at other airports), but haven’t done so in this case. There are other airports with no aircraft shown, and others with. It could easily just be down to something simple like different availability of data - eg laser and optical survey done at the same time or at different times giving different quality of results. Unless Google make some statement about how they select what data they use, then it’s just guessing.
Well, there are a few visibile taxiing, one partially like the one in the pictures above. As said before, it is probably connected with the 3D view, they are filtered out by necessity or design.
Does not work perfectly right now, 3D looks horrible, even without a “Pirates of the Carribean”-style zombi plane.