Traffic volumes
Zurich site

New passenger record set in 2025

In 2025, 4% more passengers used Zurich Airport than in the previous year. While passenger volumes got off to a slow start in the first quarter, the pre-crisis level was increasingly exceeded from the first half of the year, resulting in a new annual record. The reporting year had 31 peak days with more than 110,000 passengers, of which six exceeded the previous daily record from 2019.

The local market accounted for the highest share of passengers and grew by 6% year-on-year or 4% compared to the pre-crisis level. With 1% passenger growth compared to 2019, the transfer market developed less dynamically. Compared to the previous year, almost identical transfer volumes were recorded. This resulted in a transfer share of 29%. The local market developed positively throughout the year and reached new monthly peak volumes in the summer and autumn travel seasons. The transfer market fluctuated around the previous year’s level until the autumn, with a positive trend emerging in the fourth quarter.

The individual regions addressed by Zurich Airport revealed disparate trends. Europe, the most important market with a passenger share of 75%, grew by 4% year-on-year and counted 5% more passengers than in 2019. Once again in 2025, this was driven by the southern destinations in Spain, Italy, Turkey and Portugal.

The intercontinental market saw year-on-year passenger growth of 6% and accounted for one quarter of passenger volume. Despite this growth, a full recovery versus 2019 was still missed by half a percentage point for the year. North America was around 13% above the pre-crisis level, while Africa experienced the strongest passenger growth of any region at 18%. The Far East region continued to develop positively and consolidated the third-largest share of passengers after Europe and North America. However, due to the low level of direct travel to mainland China, regional recovery versus the pre-crisis level remained at a low 87%. Passenger volumes in the Middle East recovered to 96% of 2019 levels despite the volatile security situation, while the region with the least passengers, Latin America and the Caribbean, was still well below at 74%.

SWISS lost four percentage points compared to 2019, thus achieving a market share of 50% in the reporting year, while Edelweiss Air increased its share by two percentage points to 10%. easyJet, with 3%, had the same market share as in 2019 and thus asserted its place ahead of Eurowings. The latter airline accounted for 2% of passengers, which corresponds to a decline of one percentage point compared to 2019. The members of the Lufthansa Group accounted for a total passenger share of 66%, representing a decline of two percentage points compared to 2019. Around 95% of transfer passengers were carried by a member of the Lufthansa Group.

Seat load factor and passengers per flight movement remain high

The number of scheduled and charter flight movements developed in line with the number of passengers compared to the previous year. However, there were around 1% fewer flight movements than in 2019. At 80%, average seat load factor remained close to last year’s high. As in the previous year, the airlines carried an average of 136 passengers per flight movement. Compared to 2019, higher-capacity aircraft were used – with simultaneously better capacity utilisation.

The number of flight movements in general aviation dropped by 4% over the previous year. Compared to the pre-crisis level, this corresponds to a decline of around 5%.

More freight with more flight movements

Following a strong previous year, freight volume recorded a further increase of 1% in 2025. At a share of 71%, air freight improved at an above-average rate with a 2% increase compared to 2024, but fell short of the pre-crisis volume by 7%. This year-on-year development was due to the increase in scheduled and charter flight movements. That, in turn, created more freight capacity despite high passenger capacity utilisation, as more than 90% of air freight was handled in the lower deck (belly) of passenger aircraft. The remaining portion of air freight was transported by freight-only aircraft. Although road freight lost some momentum compared to the previous year, it was around 10% higher than in 2019.