Zurich Airport surpasses 31 million passengers

A total of 31.1 million people flew from, arrived in or transferred at Zurich Airport last year, announced Flughafen Zürich AG in a statement. This equates to an increase of 5.8 per cent compared to 2017.

Also up in 2018 were takeoffs and landings: a total of 278,458 flight movements corresponded to a year-on-year increase of three per cent. Almost six out of 10 flights were operated by Swiss International Airlines, followed by Edelweiss Air with a share of air traffic of 5.9 per cent.

Local passengers increased in 2018 compared to 2017 by 5.6 per cent 22 million. In the same period, the transfer rate surged by 6.4 per cent to 8.8 million passengers and their share in the total volume by 0.1 percentage points to 28.4 per cent.  

With an increase in seat capacity and the use of larger aircraft, flights in 2018 were better occupied than in the previous year. The average number of passengers per flight increased from 124.3 to 127.2, according to the statement, while the average seat load factor went up by 0.6 percentage points to 77.9 per cent.  

Lastly, there was a 0.6 per cent increase in freight volume in 2018 over 2017. From January to December, a total of 493,222 tons of freight passed through the airport.