Zurich Airport Discontinues Its Noise Charge

OREANDA-NEWS. As of 1 February, Zurich Airport is discontinuing its noise charge. This will result in lower charges for departing passengers.

Following the decision of November 2013 by the Swiss Federal Office for Civil Aviation (FOCA) regarding flight operation charges, the noise charge of CHF 5 per passenger will no longer be levied as of 1 February 2014. The charges for departing passengers will therefore be lower in future, thus taking pressure off the system as a whole.

The noise charge is one of the instruments used to finance the Aircraft Noise Fund, which serves to cover costs incurred as a result of aircraft noise. As things stand, the fund has sufficient resources to cover the costs of noise abatement measures in the area affected by aircraft noise and of formal expropriations, especially given that the noise-related landing charges, amounting to some tens of millions of francs, are continuing to flow into the fund.

As no agreement was reached last August between the parties in the negotiations on airport charges, the FOCA issued a formal decision. Parts of the formal decision were contested by the Board of Airline Representatives, the airline Swiss and other airlines in the Lufthansa Group. The noise charge is not affected by this.

The following overview shows the current charges compared with charges as of 1 February 2014: