Economic importance of Zurich Airport

Zurich Airport is a vital link in the Swiss national transport infrastructure and is thus of great economic importance.

In addition to flight connections, the Zurich Airport also has excellent train, bus and tram links to local and intercity public transport. It is thus an important hub for intercontinental air transport as well as for regional public rail and bus services. This diversity is what makes it the most highly developed transport hub in Switzerland.

Thanks in no small part to Swiss International Airlines' hub operations, direct flights leave Zurich Airport bound for major cities in Europe and throughout the world on a daily basis. Zurich Airport has thus made itself very accessible to the greater Zurich area as well as other parts of Switzerland. This is an important locational factor and has played an important role in turning Switzerland into a particularly attractive business location.

This degree of accessibility also has a positive impact on foreign tourism in Switzerland. At least one third of all international visitors travel to Switzerland by plane. Tourists from distant growth markets value the direct connections and incorporate them into their travel plans. Without good direct connections, there is a risk that the number of foreign tourists could decline, in particular groups of visitors from the Far East.

However, Zurich Airport not only guarantees good accessibility for Switzerland, it is also an important business location in its own right. 280 companies are represented at Zurich Airport, employing more than 25,000 people in total. The expansion, maintenance and operation of the entire infrastructure generates millions of euros worth of additional contracts and investments each year, which mostly benefit companies and people from the region. As a private company, Flughafen Zürich AG bears full responsibility for financing these investments and receives no subsidies.

Air freight is also important to Switzerland as a business location and to the Swiss economy. Zurich Airport is the most important air freight location in Switzerland and processes just under three-quarters of Switzerland's entire air freight.

Study on the economic importance of Zurich Airport

In 2012, Flughafen Zürich AG commissioned „Infras/BAK Basel“ to conduct a study on the economic importance of Zurich Airport. As well as investigating the classic direct and indirect impact on employment and the generation of added value, the study also looked at the relevance of Zurich Airport in terms of tourism, air freight and export, as well as the location factor of accessibility.

The brochure „Zurich Airport as an economic driver“ summarises the key findings and goes on to visualise and interpret the results.

In recent years, there have been many studies focusing on various economic and Swiss airport-related topics: