Around 75% less passengers at Zurich Airport in 2020
Due to the corona pandemic, Zurich Airport suffered a historic drop in traffic last year: 8.3 million passengers flew through Zurich Airport in 2020, compared to 31.5 million passengers in the previous year.
Flughafen Zürich AG CEO Stephan Widrig: “We look back on a very challenging and turbulent year. The collapse in traffic in the international travel sector came to an almost complete standstill at times. Nevertheless, Zurich Airport always remained open to ensure Switzerland’s connection to the world. Constantly changing travel regulations and quarantine rules lead to great uncertainty for both travelers and companies. As soon as the medical situation permits, travel must be able to resume without restrictions, subject to protective measures. For Swiss tourism as well as for the Swiss economy, which is dependent on foreign trade, it is important that international travel can be planned again. The recognition of vaccinations and negative test results in order to lift any quarantine regulations will play a crucial role in the return to normality in air travel. We anticipate a slow and gradual recovery in international travel beginning in mid-2021.”
Key traffic figures 2020
In 2020, Zurich Airport was host to a total of 8’341’047 passengers, representing a year-on-year decrease of 73.5%.
The number of local passengers fell by 71.7% to 6.3 million in 2020. The transfer passenger share decreased from 29.3% in 2019 to 24.2% in 2020 as the number of transfer passengers at Zurich Airport fell by 78.2% to 2.0 million.
The average number of passengers per flight fell from 129.6 to 103.0. This was supported by a 66.2% decrease in seat supply and a 17.1 percentage point decrease in seat load factor to 61.2%.
Overall, there were 111’328 flight movements at Zurich Airport in 2020, corresponding to a decrease of 59.6% compared to previous year’s figure. Swiss International Air Lines’ share of air traffic amounted to 49.5%, followed by Edelweiss Air (8.0%), Deutsche Lufthansa AG (4.4%) and Eurowings GmbH (3.3%).
There was a 35.6% decrease in freight volume in 2020 versus 2019. During the year under review, a total of 291’163 tons of freight passed through Zurich Airport. The freight volume fell significantly less than the number of passengers and the number of flight movements. In addition, the number of pure cargo flights at Zurich Airport increased by 2,130 flight movements compared to 2019. There have never been that many cargo flights in the history of Zurich Airport.