Europe · Switzerland

Handling at Zurich (LSZH)

We handle overflight permits, slots, flight plans, fuel, customs and the turnaround at Zurich. One coordinator owns the stop at Zurich, from the first filing to wheels up.

AERODROME

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ICAO: LSZH
IATA: ZRH
Elevation: 1,417 ft
Position: 47.458, 8.548

RUNWAYS

16/343,700 m / 12,139 ftConcrete
14/323,300 m / 10,827 ftConcrete
10/282,500 m / 8,202 ftConcrete

Reference only, not for flight planning. Lengths are full declared runway length rather than declared distances, and this page is not amended on the AIRAC cycle. Check the current AIP and NOTAMs, or ask the desk and we will check them for you.

The field

What LSZH is actually like

Zurich is Switzerland's largest airport and a major business aviation destination in its own right, serving the financial sector and the eastern Alps. It handles private traffic with the same precision as its scheduled programme, which is to say it expects the paperwork to be right.

Operating brief

What we handle before you file

Permits

FOCA is the authority, and the same non-EU distinction applies as at Geneva. Private operations are the easy case; commercial traffic rights want starting early rather than confirming late.

Slots and parking

Slot coordinated with a well-run allocation process. Parking is easier here than at Geneva in most weeks, which is precisely why it becomes the Davos overflow field.

Customs and border

Schengen for people, outside the EU customs union for goods. Catering uplift, spares and anything carried commercially get treated as an import, and planning for that beats discovering it on the ramp.

When it gets tight

Davos in January pushes traffic here once Geneva fills. Art Basel in June and the winter holiday period are the other two reliable squeezes.

On the ground

Off the aircraft and into the car

The general aviation centre is efficient in the way the whole country is. Central Zurich is twenty minutes, and the train from the airport genuinely beats a car at rush hour, which is worth telling passengers who assume otherwise.

Alternates

Where we go when LSZH will not take the trip

Every one of these is a field we would put to you with the reason attached, not a list of nearby runways.

LSGG
Geneva
The default Alpine field, and the one to check first outside the January peak.
LSZB
Bern Belp
Small, central and considerably quieter, for aircraft that fit.
LSZA
Lugano
The Italian-speaking south, useful when the trip is really heading for Milan or Como.

What we handle here