Airports still with fewer passengers in summer than before Corona
Published: Wednesday, Dec 6th 2023, 10:20
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The three national airports did not handle quite as many passengers in the summer half-year 2023 as before the pandemic. At 30 million, 6.4% fewer people traveled through Zurich, Geneva and Basel airports between May and October 2023 than in the same period in 2019.
However, the gap narrowed steadily over the course of the half-year compared to the pre-crisis year, as the public transport information service (Litra) announced on Wednesday. Between October 2023 and 2019, the shortfall amounted to just 2.3 percent.
Compared to the previous year, however, 15.7% more passengers arrived at or departed from the three Swiss airports in the summer half-year. Zurich Airport recorded the strongest increase in passenger numbers at 20.4%.
Meanwhile, aircraft movements were up 7.0% on the previous year at just over 278,000 take-offs and landings. According to the communiqué, Switzerland's largest airport in Zurich also saw the most significant growth here. In the pre-pandemic period, there was still a 7.1 percent shortfall, although here too the gap narrowed from May to October.
The association expects the number of passengers and flight movements to remain high in the coming months. However, passenger numbers are usually somewhat lower in winter than in summer.
Less freight transported
While passenger numbers and flight movements increased significantly compared to 2022, the picture was very different for the freight sector: aircraft flying to or from Swiss airports transported a total of just under 267,500 tons of freight from May to October. This is 10.3% less than in the same period of the previous year and 15.4% less than in the summer half of 2019.
At 11.9 percent, the drop in freight was greatest at Zurich Airport. Litra attributes the decline to the economic downturn in Europe, among other things. An assessment of further developments is difficult. "A rapid recovery in the coming months is at least questionable", the press release states.
©Keystone/SDA
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