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Queuing at Dusseldorf Airport
Photo: IMAGO/Christopher Neundorf / IMAGO/Kirchner Media
Friday was the last day of school in North Rhine-Westphalia, and the airports promptly filled up on Saturday.
There was a particularly large rush in Düsseldorf, where more than 200,000 passengers are expected for the weekend.
Travelers told a reporter from the German Press Agency that they waited in line for more than five hours.
They had arrived extra early.
There was also trouble in Düsseldorf with the luggage transport system, first on Friday and then on Saturday.
"Therefore, it cannot be ruled out that luggage will be left behind in Düsseldorf today," the airport said.
The airlines would forward this as soon as possible.
Short-term cancellations also caused frustration: nine flights were canceled at Düsseldorf Airport by noon on Saturday – eight of them from Eurowings and Lufthansa.
Various airlines had already had to cancel numerous flights in the past few days.
Due to corona diseases, there were sometimes considerable staff shortages.
Only the security checks went relatively quickly, at least in Düsseldorf with waiting times of 10 to 15 minutes - at Cologne/Bonn Airport it was between 60 and 90 minutes.
More than a hundred employees were absent due to illness.
It's unusually quiet on the freeways
Since many people fly back on vacation after the forced break caused by the corona, the car is losing some of its importance for the journey compared to the past two corona years, the ADAC had analyzed in advance.
In addition, not everyone would leave immediately in the first few weeks.
Travel is more likely to be spread over the entire summer vacation.
In fact, there was no big wave of travel on the Autobahns in North Rhine-Westphalia on Saturday.
"For the fact that it's the start of the summer holidays, it's unusually quiet on the freeways," said a spokesman for the state police control center.
Already in the morning there were almost no traffic jams.
"Currently you don't feel anything from holiday travel," said an ADAC spokesman at noon.
That didn't change during the day either.
Deutsche Bahn, on the other hand, recorded an increase in travel.
A spokesman said it was busier than normal weekends.
The railways had already warned in advance that there could be high capacity utilization this weekend due to the increased number of passengers, especially in regional traffic.
mgo/dpa
