Hotels near ⁨Zürich Airport (ZRH)⁩

Zurich Airport (German: Flughafen Zürich; IATA: ZRH, ICAO: LSZH) is the largest international airport of Switzerland and the principal hub of Swiss International Air Lines. It serves Zurich, the largest city in Switzerland, and, with its surface transport links, much of the rest of the country. The airport is located nine kilometres (5+1⁄2 miles) north of central Zurich, in the municipalities of Kloten, Rümlang, Oberglatt, Winkel, and Opfikon, all of which are within the canton of Zurich. == History == === Early years === In the Zurich area, mixed civil and military air traffic developed from 1909 onwards at Dübendorf airfield, northeast of the city. From 1919, the airport was home to Swissair's predecessor Ad Astra Aero, and from 1932 also to Swissair. The first regular international flight service began on 1 June 1922 with an Ad Astra route to Fürth, Germany. In the early years of aviation, the Dübendorf Air Base, located around 9 km (5.6 mi) southeast of Zurich Airport, also served as the city's commercial airfield. The need for a dedicated commercial facility led to the search for a location to build a replacement airport. In 1939, civil air traffic had to be suspended at the outbreak of the Second World War for military strategic reasons. Although Swissair was allowed to resume scheduled air traffic in September 1940, this remained on a modest scale during the conflict. In March 1943, the government of the canton of Zurich commissioned a study to identify possible locations to construct a major airport. In its report, a consortium of engineers and architects led by Locher & Cie advised against the previously discussed expansion options at Dübendorf and instead recommended a separate civil airport in the partially forested moorland area of the armoury situated between Kloten and Oberglatt. In August 1943, the Federal Military Department declared its agreement to abandon the armoury as a matter of principle "in the higher national interest". Locher & Cie submitted "Project I" to the Government on 31 December 1943. Four runways were planned and together with the buildings the required area was 472 hectares (1,170 acres). Without the purchase of land, the project would have cost CHF 87 million. The government found the costs too high and ordered a revision. The "Project II" of 29 April 1944 still provided for an area of 290 hectares (720 acres) at a cost of CHF 65 million, but the government council demanded a further reduction. For "Project III" of 31 July 1944, CHF 54.4 million and 215 hectares (530 acres) were required. The project nevertheless met the requirements of an intercontinental airport. The Government formally approved it and submitted it to the Federal Government, strongly emphasising that the Zurich project was "far superior" to the also planned (and ultimately abandoned) Swiss Central Airport Utzenstorf, near Bern. In December 1944, the responsible Federal Councillor, Enrico Celio, explicitly spoke out in favour of Zurich-Kloten, in a letter to his counterparts, as did the governments of the cantons of Eastern and Central Switzerland and Ticino a month later. The National Council and Council of States followed this view and on 22 June 1945 approved the "Federal Decree on the Expansion of Civil Airports". Basel, Bern and Geneva were to receive smaller continental airports and be supported with a 30 percent share of the costs. The Zurich project was granted the status of an intercontinental airport and the highest possible subsidy rate of 35 percent. Switzerland's federal parliament decided in 1945 that Zurich was to be the site of a major airport, and sold 655 hectares (1,620 acres) of the Kloten-Bülach Artillery Garrison (German: Artillerie-Waffenplatz Kloten-Bülach) to the canton of Zurich, giving the canton control of the new airfield. Construction of the airport began the following year. Initial plans for the airport, as laid out in the Federal Government's scheme of 1945, were centred on facilities capable of handling international airline traffic. Aircraft of up to 80 tonnes were envisaged. The primary runway was to be designed for use in all weather conditions and at night, with a 400-metre (1,300 ft)-wide hard surface running to 3,000 metres (9,800 ft) in length. Additional 100-metre (330 ft) areas were to be provided on the shoulders for lateral protection in case of runway excursions. Additional domestic runways, between 1,000 and 1,400 metres (3,281 and 4,593 ft) in length, were also to be built. === First stage of construction: civil engineering === On 25 February 1946, the Cantonal Council of Zurich approved a building loan of CHF 36.8 million. The cantonal referendum of 5 May 1946 resulted in a clear approval with 105,705 votes in favour and 29,372 against. "Project IV" never came to fruition, as it was further developed by adapting it to the ICAO standards which were changing rapidly at the time. Instead of four runways, the new "Project V" of 20 May 1946 provided only three. Project VI" of 9 October 1946 increased the dimensions of all three runways. Finally, the slightly modified "Project VII" of 20 December 1947 was realised. Within three years, the design on the drawing board had completely changed from a purely grass airfield with a four-runway system without taxiways to a three-runway system with paved taxiways. The staggered design meant that it was possible to react to changes without having to impose a complete halt to construction. Construction works finally began on 5 May 1946 with the diversion of the Altbach stream. The 1,900 m (6,234 ft) long West Runway 10/28 was the first runway which was opened on 14 June 1948, and on which the first Swissair Douglas DC-4 took off for London. On behalf of the canton as airport owner, Cantonal Councillor Jakob Kägi gave a speech to mark the inauguration of the new runway and the start of provisional flight operations. Shortly after, on 17 November 1948, the 2,600 m (8,530 ft) long blind runway 16/34 (runway with instrument landing system) was opened for operation, which was attended by the seven members of the cantonal government. In the presence of guests from politics and the media as well as representatives of the construction companies and airlines, the new airport was inaugurated, which meant that the relocation of the entire civil flight operations from Dübendorf to Kloten had already been completed and full operation could begin at the new Zurich Airport. === First stage of construction: structural engineering === The character of a provisional solution was supported – despite full operation – by the lack of buildings, especially the "Flughof", which had been planned since 1946. Instead, a growing shanty town stood to the east of the reserved building site. On 27 October 1948, the canton outsourced the development, construction and operation of the buildings to the newly founded "Flughafen-Immobilien-Gesellschaft" (FIG), a mixed-economy public limited company in which the public sector held half of the shares (canton of Zurich 22.5%, city of Zurich 18%, "Zürcher Kantonalbank" 5%, city of Winterthur 3.6% and municipality of Kloten 0.9%). The FIG took over projects that had been started and was thus able to hand over the completed "shipyard I" to Swissair for use as early as late autumn 1948, followed by offices for Swissair's technical departments, which were finally able to leave Dübendorf by the end of April 1949. Further workshops, the striking arched hangar and the "Heating Centre I" for the heat supply were completed by the end of 1949. Based on "Project V", the terminal building had already been designed as a convex building at the airport head in mid-1946. In the following four years, a total of 24 feasible airport project designs were submitted, before the FIG commissioned the construction of the airport according to plans by Alfred and Heinrich Oeschger in November 1950. At the beginning of 1951, the piling work for the terminal building began, the construction work took about two years. With the opening on 9 April 1953, the shanty town could be abandoned. The new building consisted of a central passenger wing, flanked by a restaurant and an office wing. In addition there was a spectator terrace of 200 m (656 ft) length. === The first years of operation === As had been expected the construction costs had been significantly exceeded. Several metres of raised bog were removed and backfilled with material from the Holberg; the concrete area had also increased from the originally planned 420,000 m2 (4,520,000 sq ft) to a good 611,000 m2 (6,580,000 sq ft). In addition, the former weapons range area had to be searched for unexploded bombs, of which a total of 157 were found. The costs for "Project IV", estimated at CHF 59.5 million in 1946, had risen to CHF 106 million by the time the civil engineering works under "Project VII" were completed in July 1949. Both chambers of the Federal Assembly concluded the political review with the "Federal Decree on the Payment of Additional Federal Contributions to the Construction of Zurich-Kloten Airport" of 29 September 1949. The Federation contributed CHF 27.1 million and doubled its contribution to the air traffic control facilities. For its part, the Cantonal Council granted a supplementary credit on 13 February 1950. This was accepted by the voters on 7 May 1950 with 73,551 votes to 59,088 (yes share of 55.45%). The new terminal opened in 1953 with a large air show that ran for three days. In 1947, the airport handled 133,638 passengers on 12,766 airline flights; in 1952, 372,832 passengers on 24,728 airline flights. === Second stage of construction === Locher & Cie was commissioned in 1954 to design various project options for the second construction phase. In March 1956, the canton submitted an extended project to the Federal Council. In addition to mandatory runway extensions for the incipient "jet age", the project also provided for the extension of the public facilities, which were already overused and dominated by various provisional arrangements; two finger docks were to defuse the situation. On 12 October 1956, the Federal Council recommended that Parliament approve the bill. On 19 December 1956, the Council of States approved the federal contribution of CHF 54.8 million (at a total cost of 181.8 million), and the National Council followed suit on 7 March 1957. The contribution of the canton of Zurich of CHF 74.3 million was still outstanding, the rest was to be raised by FIG and Swissair. The concrete expansion project included the extension of the blind runway to 4,000 metres (13,000 ft) and the western runway to 3,150 metres (10,330 ft), as well as the extension of the buildings. Opponents described the "super airport Kloten" as a "luxury" and criticised that the canton had "lost every measure". Another issue that planners had completely neglected until then was the aircraft noise. With a high turnout of 72.3%, the expansion project failed in the cantonal referendum of 23 June 1957 with 97,603 votes to 83,196 (no vote of 54.0%). Just four days later, Zurich's cantonal government commissioned a redimensioned expansion project. The blind runway was to be only 3,700 metres (12,100 ft) long, the western runway 2500 m; the construction of the finger docks was abandoned. Thus the canton's share of the project to be approved was only CHF 49.1 million. The government paid far more attention to the aircraft noise. On 6 July 1958, voters approved the project by 107,050 votes to 56,872 (yes share 65.3%), with a 65.6% share. Due to time pressure - the landing of the first jet aircraft was planned for the following year - construction work began without waiting for approval of federal funding. In December 1958 and March 1959 respectively, the National Council and the Council of States granted subsidies of 55.6 million. In 1959, BOAC started regular flight connections to Zurich with the revised "Comet IV", while the airport was