The largest airport in Switzerland, Zurich-Kloten, is hoping for a significant improvement from spring 2022. In the opinion of airport boss Stefan Widrig, however, you will not find back to figures that were available before the pandemic until 2025.

The manager told the tourism magazine Travel Inside that the Omikron variant has a strong influence on demand. "Since Omikron appeared on the radar, the aviation industry is almost back on field 1," says Widrig. It would be difficult to make any predictions at the moment, because a lot depends on which restrictions are made and how long they last. 

The Zurich Airport boss rejects blanket quarantines. However, in view of the Omikron variant, Widrig considers tests upon entry to be “justifiable”. In the direction of the Swiss Federal Council, he asked that quarantine lists should no longer be used. He told Travel Inside: “It's okay if you ensure a certain travel slowdown between continents. But you have to be able to travel freely within Schengen ”.

In 2021 there were around a third of passengers than in 2019. About ten million travelers. The airport would be well positioned financially: “Fortunately, in the good times we built up reserves and diversified our business. Last year we also raised 900 million Swiss francs in debt in order to be able to ensure liquidity at all times. We have sufficient financial resources to weather this crisis. And even if 2022 is a difficult one, we don't need any state aid, apart from the short-time work allowance ”. The short-time working also helped significantly that the downsizing was as low as possible.