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The birth of Zurich Airport

Seventy-five years ago, work began on the construction of Zurich Airport, which quickly grew to become Switzerland’s busiest aviation hub.

On May 5, 1946, Zurich voters approved a project to build a new international airport in German-speaking Switzerland to rival Geneva Airport in the French-speaking region. Two months later the diggers moved in to start work on swampy land at Kloten, north of Zurich city centre.

On June 14, 1948, a ceremony was held at the new Zurich-Kloten Airport to mark the official opening of the airport’s first runway, a 1,900-metre long track.

Although it was a modestly sized airport when it was built, Zurich has progressively expanded over the next decades.

It is now the biggest in the country ahead of Geneva and Basel airports. Before the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic, flight traffic at Zurich Airport hit an all-time high in 2019 when 31.5 million passengers passed through the facility and there were 275,000 flight movements.

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SWI swissinfo.ch - a branch of Swiss Broadcasting Corporation SRG SSR