Flight movements on international routes

In 2019, a total of around 1.4 million takeoffs and landings were recorded in Switzerland’s civil aviation. Only 0.5 million of these were scheduled and charter flights, which nevertheless handle almost 99% of the total passenger transport.

The maximum number of flight movements in scheduled and charter flights was reached in 2000 (537,813). Since then, the number of flight movements has decreased by around 70,000 (2019: 469,667), equating to a change of -13%. The decline in flight movements was a result of the events of 2001 (9/11 in New York, the demise of Swissair), the bank crisis of 2008 and the general trend towards increased flight occupancy.
The decline was mainly at the expense of Zurich Airport (-17%) and Basel Mulhouse (-23%), while Geneva Airport was actually able to record considerable growth from 2004 onwards (+23%). The reason for these deviating developments was that Swissair had already largely withdrawn from Geneva Airport for long-haul destinations back in the 90s.
On an international level, the two American airports Chicago/O’Hare and Atlanta/Hartsfield-Jackson took the lead in commercial flight movements, with more than 900,000 a year. In Europe, Frankfurt/Main, Amsterdam/Schiphol, Paris/Charles-de-Gaulle and London/Heathrow record around a half of this number, while Zurich can still only count a quarter of these flight movements. In the future, a general increase in the number of flight movements is expected.

In 2019, the most flown-to destinations from Switzerland for scheduled and charter flights were predominantly in Europe. From Zurich, the most flights went to Berlin/Tegel (9489) and London/Heathrow (9066). They are followed by Vienna (7747), Dusseldorf (7529) and Amsterdam/Schiphol (7443). A similar pattern was also seen for Geneva, where London/Heathrow (9827) also occupied the top spot and to Paris/Charles de Gaulle (6041) followed in second place. This is followed by Amsterdam/Schiphol (5932), the domestic service to Zurich (5782) and London/Gatwick (5595). Amsterdam/Schiphol (4235) is the most frequently served destination from Basel-Mulhouse, followed by Munich (3374), Frankfurt/Main (3153), London/Heathrow (2553) and Barcelona/El Prat (2336).