About Zurich
Zurich Airport is the largest international airport of Switzerland and the principal hub of Swiss International Air Lines. It serves Zurich, Switzerland's largest city, and, due to its surface transport links, much of the rest of the country. It is located 13 kilometres (8 mi) north of central Zurich.
The airport has three runways and three terminals (A, B, and E). Dock E, the midfield satellite terminal, is connected by an underground automated people mover called the "Skymetro." During the ride, tunnel walls disPlay a projection of the Swiss Alps and the sound of Heidi and cowbells plays, giving a unique Swiss welcome.
Zurich Airport is known for its cleanliness, efficiency, and short transfer times. It offers an observation deck (Observation Deck B) publicly accessible to non-passengers, a rare feature in modern airports. It handles a significant amount of premium banking and business traffic alongside tourism to the Alps.
Zurich Airport is operated by Flughafen Zürich AG, a publicly listed company whose shares trade on the SIX Swiss Exchange under the ticker FHZN and whose largest single shareholder is the Canton of Zurich with 33.33 per cent. The remainder is held by public investors, with the Swiss federal government intentionally absent from the shareholder list—an unusual arrangement for a critical piece of European aviation infrastructure. The airport is legally bound by a 1999 treaty with neighbouring Germany that restricts approaches from the north over German airspace between 21:00 and 07:00 on weekdays and all day on weekends, forcing a complex runway-usage schedule where the crosswind runway 34 is used disproportionately for early-morning arrivals. This diplomatic limitation has produced one of the most convoluted noise-abatement flight-path networks in Europe.