Large rises in charges at Zurich airport have caused easyJet to withdraw its twice-daily service between London Gatwick and the Swiss city. The low-fare carrier says the service, which it started in February 2001, had become unprofitable because of a 132% increase in passenger fees at Zurich in two years.
"The level of airport charges at Zurich - well in excess of two-thirds of the average fare - has made the service unsustainable," says Ray Webster, easyJet chief executive. The fee rise comes on top of onerous operating restrictions in over-flying southern Germany and a strict curfew, says easyJet.
While easyJet will use the "scarce resource" of its Gatwick slots for another service, it will continue its London Luton-Zurich three times daily operation which remains profitable.
According to easyJet, Zurich is by some margin the most expensive airport it flies to. It criticises the airport's pricing policy which is partly geared to recovering expenditure on a new terminal originally designed for now-defunct Swissair. "In recent years, airport expansion in Zurich has created facilities which are simply not appropriate for the current customer base," says Webster.
The loss of the easyJet service is a blow for Zurich as it continues to see falling traffic levels as home base carrier Swiss cuts back its operations. Swiss is still easily the largest carrier at Zurich with 58.8% of all movements.
In 2003 the airport handled 17 million passengers, a 5.1% decline over 2002. In 2000, before the collapse of Swissair, Zurich handled 22.6 million passengers. Low-cost airlines have filled some of the void. The airport handled 990,000 passengers from easyJet, Air Berlin, Germanwings, Germania, Helvetic and SkyEurope last year.
Commenting on the loss of easyJet's Gatwick link, Zurich says that landing fees have not been increased since the mid-1980s, but that from September it raised the charge for local departing passengers from SFr24.50 ($20) to SFr36.
Source: Airline Business
