Airport Safety Rankings: Zurich Rated Safer Than Geneva and Basel by Pilots
In the realm of aviation, safety remains a top priority. This year, Aeropers, representing Swiss International Air Lines and Edelweiss pilots, has taken a significant step in ensuring safety standards at Switzerland's major airports.
For the first time, Aeropers has joined forces with Vereinigung Cockpit (VC) to participate in the annual airport safety assessments at Zurich, Geneva, and Basel airports. This collaboration, which began recently, is an extension of VC's original focus on German airports, now broadening to include Swiss airports.
The 2025 assessment, with a risk-based approach, places a significant focus on preventing runway incursions—an issue of global concern. The VC Airport Check for 2025 highlights lessons from serious international incidents to underline the critical need for enhanced safety measures such as stop bars, Runway End Safety Areas (RESA), and well-trained runway safety teams.
Key emphases for the 2025 analysis include the major risks of airplanes overshooting or leaving the runway unintentionally, the risk of unauthorized access to the runway, and evaluating backup infrastructure in the event of GPS jamming, a concern that has been growing due to geopolitical tensions.
Last year, Leipzig/Halle airport ranked first in the safety analysis of 31 German and Swiss airports, while Geneva and Basel airports ranked 26th and 30th, respectively. Aeropers plans to assess safety at Switzerland's three national airports annually.
This proactive approach to safety checks underscores the importance of ongoing evaluations. Incidents such as a commercial plane collision at Haneda Airport in Tokyo in 2024, resulting in five fatalities, and a Jeju Air flight crash at South Korea's Muan International Airport in the same year, resulting in 179 fatalities, serve as grim reminders of the need for vigilance.
In conclusion, Aeropers' active participation in the VC's airport check initiative is a significant stride towards maintaining and improving safety standards at Switzerland's major airports. By focusing on measures to avoid runway incursions and evaluating infrastructure, procedures, and situational awareness tools, Aeropers is directly addressing pilots' operational safety on the ground.
The new collaboration between Aeropers and Vereinigung Cockpit (VC) in airport safety assessments expands beyond finance, but also includes industry sectors like transportation and aviation. This shared focus on safety extends to sports as well, given the emphasis on preventing incidents that could potentially cause catastrophic outcomes, such as the commercial plane collision at Haneda Airport in Tokyo and the Jeju Air flight crash.
