Cologne - Bonn Airport
On the last day of august, Dirk decided to travel to Cologne Bonn Airport for the first time. What he has seen during his 5 hour long stay at the airport you find out in this report. First a little information about the airport: Cologne Bonn Airport (Flughafen Köln/Bonn, also known as Flughafen Köln-Wahn) is the international airport of Germany's fourth largest city Koln. The airport is located in the district of Porz and is surrounded by the Wahner Heide nature reserve. The airport is centrally located in the Cologne/Bonn Region 14.8 km southeast of Cologne city centre. Cologne Bonn Airport serves as a hub for Eurowings and Germanwings, FedEx Express and UPS Airlines. It also is a host of the German and European space agencies DLR and EAC, part of ESA, which trains astronauts there for space explorations.
During the day, Dirk saw some airplanes with already a long age of service. For example, the Blue Air (YR-BAT) was delivered in the beginning of 1991 and shortly afterwards started flying with Lauda Air” , after some time it made a short time flying by Blue Panorama Airlines. Afterwards flying by Afriqiyah Airways, Alisea Airlines, Ukraine International Airlines and finally Blue Air. Since November 2015 the airplane is stored at the airport in Bucharest. Another airplane with history is the Fairchild Swearingen SA227-AC Metro III (D-CNAF) from BinAir which was delivered in 1982 and has been seen flying by Hahn Air, Northern Air Charter, Regional Air Express, European Air Express and BinAir. Also the Boeing 757 from Condor (D-ABOA) is always nice to see.
The highlight for Dirk was the arrival from the Spanish Air Force (Ejercito del Aire) C-295M Casa, but also the arrival and departures from the German Air Force
(Luftwaffe) C-160D Transall, BD-700 Global Express and the A310MRTT were a nice extra.
As mentioned before the airport serves as a hub for Eurowings and Germanwings, FedEx Express and UPS Airlines also these were seen during the stay, pictures can be found below.
Text & Photography: Dirk Geuns