Following the lifting of the travel warning for most European countries, airports in North Rhine-Westphalia are gradually resuming operations and many airlines are preparing intensively for the resumption of flight operations.

A spokesman for the Lufthansa subsidiary Eurowings said that the flight schedule would be significantly expanded, especially from July onwards, when there will be three times as many Eurowings flights as in June. However, that would only be a maximum of 40 per cent of the flight connections in July of last year.

Operations are also slowly resuming at Cologne/Bonn Airport. The resumption of operations will initially begin on a small scale in June, and then gradually increase in July. Currently, 45 destinations by twelve airlines are planned at Cologne/Bonn Airport, which means a total of about 250 take-offs and landings per week. Eurowings will be flying to destinations such as Palma de Mallorca, Zagreb, Sarajevo, Lisbon, Edinburgh, Vienna, Zurich, and domestic destinations such as Munich, Hamburg and Berlin from mid-June. The Hungarian Wizz Air will be flying to Eastern Europe, including to Tuzla, in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Varna on the Bulgarian Black Sea coast and Skopje in Macedonia.

In July, Ryanair will then continue to fly from Cologne/Bonn into the sun: Ryanair plans to resume flights to tourist destinations such as Mallorca, Barcelona, Malaga, Madrid, Seville and Porto. Tuifly has also announced some destinations for July: Fuerteventura, Las Palmas, Tenerife, as well as Heraklion, Kos and Rhodes in Greece.

In past weeks, NRW airports had reduced their operations to almost zero and there were hardly any take-offs and landings anywhere. According to Friday's data from the State Statistical Office, only 8,369 passengers took off from the six largest airports in April, which represented a decrease of 99.6 per cent compared to the same month last year.

At the airports, passengers will encounter security measures, such as being required to wear masks. At check-in, in front of security and boarding-card checks and at baggage claim areas, the safety distance of 1.5 metres is to be maintained by separate walkways and marking. In the waiting areas, many seats must remain empty and the aircraft will be boarded at staggered intervals.

(Original text; Michael Wrobel, with material from the dpa)

Artist Eugen Schramm sprayed a policeman in handcuffs on the legal graffiti wall at the halfpipe in the Rheinaue in Bonn on Monday, and “Justice” was later to be read between the hands. Eugen Schramm's political message lasted for four days before other artists came and the reminder of the events in America became a thing of the past. “Normally the wall is painted over the next day”, said the 41-year-old from Beuel.

With regards to the motif itself, Schramm was not concerned with the actual crime or the death of the African American George Floyd: “The picture shows the police officer responsible, Derek Chauvin, because I'm afraid that something will be covered up and he will be released.” Schramm didn't want to put all the police under general suspicion “That's why mine is wearing the uniform of the state of Minnesota”, he said. The art work took eight hours to complete.

(Original text; Silke Elbern)

The intermunicipal e-bike rental system in the Rhein-Sieg district and Weilerswist on the left bank of the Rhine recorded more than 10,000 rentals in its first year of operation, the operating company Regional transport Köln (RVK) announced. Seventy pedelecs (so-called pedal electric cycles) have been available for hire around the clock at 7 fixed stations and a further 14 so-called virtual stations since May 2019 in the Rhine-Voreifel region on the left bank of the Rhine in the Bonn area. The bikes are provided by Nextbike.

The RVK has further announced that users can now finish or start their trips with the bikes in Bonn. Three locations have been set up as additional virtual stations for this purpose: on Poppelsdorfer Allee and in Bad Godesberg and Mehlem. The exact locations of the virtual stations can be seen in the Nextbike app.

Although there are no fixed bicycle racks or charging stations at all virtual stations, the bikes can be parked there and locked with the rear wheel lock, which ends the rental period. It is also possible to borrow bikes there for trips back to the Rhein-Sieg-Kreis.

Further information is available at www.rvk.de/e-bike.

(Original text; Christoph Meurer)

Politicians and citizens want to make the underground station in Bonn-Ramersdorf more attractive. With about 8,000 commuters daily, the station is the second largest station within the city.

The Ramersdorf stop was originally an above-ground stop for trams but was moved underground in 1981 as a three-track station. Only five days later, however, it had to be closed because it was damaged by a fire. According to the GA archive, the fire resulted in huge restoration costs. One problem was that PVC was used on site, which led to major problems. Hydrochloric acid had been released during the fire and this had penetrated deep into the ground and attacked all free metal parts. The outdoor facilities with the car park were created as part of a development project.

There are many grievances that need to be urgently remedied, according to the CDU district councillors Marco Rudolph and Michael Husmann as well as Hans-Peter Bürkner and Gabriele Petersen from the SPD. There is hardly any light along the footpaths, there are no toilets nearby, and access for people with reduced mobility is not possible everywhere. "We must do everything we can to finally upgrade this piece of fillet from Ramersdorf", demands Wilfried Mermagen from the local citizens' association.

Many commuters also miss a kiosk. With Markus Bonk, Rudolph and Husmann presented an alternative to a stationary point of sale. Bonk operates several coffee bikes in Bonn and would also stop at the transfer station Ramersdorf. Another annoyance for many commuters is the Park-and-ride, in which no space can be found in the mornings because employees of surrounding companies park their vehicles there. In addition to the sometimes inadequate lighting around the stops, the lack of accessibility is another problem that urgently needs to be tackled. The plan is to raise the low-floor platform to allow stepless entering and alighting.

According to information from local politicians, the plans for the station conversion are currently being drawn up. If the construction requirements are available sooner than for the Juridicum stop, which is high on the priority list, work could begin quickly, perhaps as early as the end of 2020 or the beginning of 2021.

(Original text; Gabriele Immenkeppel)

(Translations John Chandler)