The distance between the Dübendorf military airfield and Zurich Airport measures about eight kilometers. By car, the journey takes about nine minutes. By plane it sometimes takes just as long, but sometimes it takes almost half an hour.
Swiss pilots who flew planes from one airport to the other in March are well aware of this. In Dübendorf, the Lufthansa subsidiary parked aircraft that it no longer needed due to the corona crisis, but for which it could no longer find space in Zurich. Since then, 14 Airbus A320 and A321 have stood mothballed at the small airport, waiting for better times.
Some will soon be flying again
Now they are leaving the airbase again. «At the beginning of next week, the 14 aircraft parked in Dübendorf will fly back to Zurich-Kloten,» confirms a spokesman for Swiss aeroTELEGRAPH. They will then go into maintenance.
Some of the A320s and A321s will also be used again in scheduled operations when flight operations are ramped up. The airline plans to resume service in the fall to 85 percent of the destinations it served before the corona crisis. Its sister, Edelweiss, has also begun to bring back its aircraft from Dübendorf.
