(sda) The number of passengers in March 2021 was 228,050, which corresponds to a decrease of 74.4 percent compared to the previous year. The share of transfer passengers was 19.3 percent, which is a decrease of 6.7 percentage points compared to the previous year. In absolute numbers, just under 43,500 passengers in Zurich switched to another aircraft.
The number of flight movements, at 5,792 take-offs or landings, was also 48 percent below the previous year, but was less drastic than the drop in passenger numbers. However, the load factor of the aircraft fell by 43.3 percent. This means that an average of only 78.1 passengers sat in an arriving or departing aircraft.
When comparing the figures with the same month last year, however, caution is advised: because then the first serious effects of the first lockdown, which was imposed in mid-March, were already evident. As a result, passenger numbers plummeted for the first time in this crisis and decreased by 63.2 percent to 890,000 compared to March 2019.
When the corona crisis was still a long way off in spring 2019, 2.43 million passengers had traveled via Zurich Airport in March. Compared to March 2019 as a “normal” month, the minus would be 90.6 percent. The worst of the crisis for the airport was in April of last year. At that time, passenger numbers even fell by 99 percent, with only 27,000 people traveling via Zurich Airport.
Seen over the entire quarter, the number of passengers at the airport fell by 86 percent. A good 708,000 people traveled via Zurich Airport between January and March. During this period, flight movements decreased by a total of 68.1 percent to a good 16,000 compared to the previous year.
The low number of passengers and the continuing great uncertainty among travelers were also reflected in the commercial turnover, which indicates sales in the shops on the air and land side at the airport, for example in the new shopping center “The Circle”.
Commercial sales in March were CHF 13.7 million, a third below the previous year’s figure. Compared to February, however, the commercial turnover increased again somewhat. In February this was still CHF 9.0 million.
Freight fared much better than the passenger sector. With 33,038 tons of air and road freight, 29.6 percent more was handled than in March 2020. It was also significantly more than in the previous month of February, when 28,602 tons of freight started its journey via Zurich Airport. Viewed over the entire first quarter, however, freight revenue fell by 8.8 percent – despite the increase in March.
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