Seventy-five years ago today, Zurich Airport began regular operations in Kloten, just north of Switzerland’s largest city. On Wednesday it commemorated its first ever flight with the flyover and landing of a Douglas DC-3.
It was this make of plane that made the first landing in the new airport on June 14, 1948, coming from London.
Initially, only the east-west runway was available. The north-south blind landing runway was opened a few months later in November 1948. It was only then that all scheduled traffic was transferred from Dübendorf, the previous hub of aviation in the Zurich area, to Kloten, the present location of Zurich Airport. The flight schedule was still manageable at that time, involving around only 20 take-offs and landings a day.
Zurich Airport’s first passenger terminal was inaugurated in 1953, meaning that passengers now had an alternative to waiting patiently in tight cabins as they had done previously.
In 1975 the airport inaugurated a second, and more updated, terminal featuring a shopping area.
In 2003 intercontinental flights were moved to a third and brand-new terminal, which was linked to the rest of the airport with a state-of-the-art Skymetro, an underground metro system capable of transporting passengers 1.1 kilometres with great efficiency.
In June 2016 Zurich Airport finally reached the 100,000 passengers a day mark. However, only four years later, it recorded a mere 262 passengers on the April 22, 2020, due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
In its 75 years since opening, Zurich airport has been used by stars such as Louis Armstrong, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, King Charles III and Pope John Paul II, who famously kissed the tarmac on the runway.
On Wednesday, an interactive airport exhibition was opened in the Airport Shopping area. The main anniversary celebration for the public, with a large aviation exhibition and concerts, will take place from September 1-3.
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