Zurich airport managed to raise the bar slightly in 2021, but is still well below its level of activity recorded in 2019, announced Wednesday Flughafen Zürich, the operator of the first Swiss airport platform.
Last year, some 10.2 million passengers passed through Kloten Airport in the Zurich suburb. This is 22.7% more than in 2020, the year when air transport was hit hard by health restrictions imposed due to the coronavirus pandemic.
But the airport is still a long way from the 31.5 million passengers transported in 2019 – a record figure – before the outbreak of the Covid-19 crisis.
After a difficult first part of 2021, air transport had regained some strength thanks to the summer holidays and fall. But the situation worsened again at the end of the year with the appearance of the variant Omicron, which is very contagious and which required new health measures.
Resumption of commercial activity
The number of aircraft rotations increased as a result, with 132,600 take-offs and landings, 19.1% more than the previous year. Swiss was the largest contributor with a 51.7% share of aircraft movements, followed by its holiday travel subsidiary Edelweiss (9.7%) and its parent company Lufthansa (3%).
In December alone, some 1.1 million passengers took off from Zurich, a figure almost tripling over one year. Compared with December 2019, the number of travelers during the month under review stands at 45.4%.
The resumption of activity was also felt at the level of freight, whose volumes jumped by 35% over one year with a total of 393,062 tonnes of goods transported.
Commercial activities – in particular shops and restaurants – have also recovered, with turnover increasing 24.3% to 294.8 million francs.
This article was published automatically. Sources: ats / awp