Summer is peak season for Swiss airports. But where are all those passengers headed? Data from 2024 reveal not only the most popular final destinations but also how preferences shift with geography, season, and language.
Europe dominates. In 2024, 79% of passengers departing from Swiss airports flew to European destinations. The rest were split between Asia (8%), the Americas (8%), Africa (5%), and Oceania (0.4%). A majority—84%—travelled on direct flights, while the remaining 16% included at least one layover. The figures refer to “local” passengers: those who checked in at a Swiss airport, including tourists returning home. They exclude transfer passengers who merely changed planes in Switzerland.
Spain and Britain top the charts
Among individual destinations, Spain led the field with 3.10 million passengers, followed closely by the United Kingdom (2.89 million).
Other countries to surpass the one-million mark included:
– Germany – 1.50 million
– Portugal – 1.49 million
– France – 1.36 million
– Italy – 1.35 million
– Turkey – 1.16 million
Language and geography still shape passenger flows. From Zurich, travellers were four times more likely to fly to Germany than to France; at Geneva, the reverse held true, with three times more passengers flying to France than to Germany. Click here to view a tree map.
Still below pre-pandemic levels—mostly
Despite a strong recovery in air travel, passenger numbers to Europe, Asia, and Oceania remained below 2019 levels, the last full year before COVID-19 upended global mobility. In contrast, travel to Africa and the Americas exceeded pre-pandemic figures—though that rebound comes with caveats. Passenger growth to those continents had been sluggish in the years leading up to the pandemic. Travel to Africa, in particular, dipped after 2010, largely due to a collapse in tourism to Egypt and Tunisia following the Arab Spring.
More on this:
FSO report (in French) – Take a 5 minute French test now
For more stories like this on Switzerland follow us on Facebook and Twitter.
