Cologne Bonn Airport () is the international airport of Germany's fourth-largest city Cologne, and also serves Bonn, the former capital of West Germany. With approximately 12.4 million passengers passing through it in 2017, it is the seventh-largest passenger airport in Germany and the third-largest in terms of cargo operations. By traffic units, which combines cargo and passengers, the airport is in fifth position in Germany. As of March 2015, Cologne Bonn Airport had services to 115 passenger destinations in 35 countries. The airport is named after Cologne native Konrad Adenauer, the first post-war Chancellor of West Germany. The airport is located in the district of Porz and is surrounded by Wahner Heide, a nature reserve. The airport is centrally located in the Cologne Bonn Region southeast of Cologne city centre and northeast of Bonn. Cologne Bonn Airport is one of the country's few 24-hour airports and serves as a hub for Eurowings, FedEx Express and UPS Airlines as well as a focus city for several leisure and low-cost airlines. It is also a host of the German and European space agencies DLR and EAC, part of ESA, which train astronauts there for space explorations. Cologne Bonn airport is only south of larger Düsseldorf Airport, the main airport of Rhine-Ruhr, and also competes with Frankfurt Airport, Germany's major international airport, which can be reached from Cologne within 47 minutes by the ICE high-speed train. The airport is jointly owned by the City of Cologne (31.12%), the Federal Republic of Germany (30.94%), the State of North Rhine-Westphalia (30.94%), the City of Bonn (6.06%) and two counties: Rhein-Sieg-Kreis (0.59%) and Rheinisch-Bergischer Kreis (0.35%). History 20th century In 1938, the first airfield was built on site for the German Luftwaffe. After World War II the British military took over and expanded the airport (as RAF Wahn). A 1,866 m runway was built in this period. In 1950 the airport was opened for civilian air traffic to serve both Cologne and West Germany's then new capital, Bonn, superseding the former Cologne Butzweilerhof Airport. The first scheduled international route was London-Cologne/Bonn-Berlin operated by BEA, inaugurated on 1 January 1951. A second and third runway was opened in 1954 and 1961 subsequently. That same year Lufthansa inaugurated the first scheduled intercontinental service from Cologne/Bonn to New York City. The new passenger termina, which still exists today as Terminal 1, was inaugurated in 1970. The airport's passenger and