Swiss central airport utzenstorf top 6 facts
The Swiss Central Airport Utzenstorf - German Schweizerischer Zentralflughafen Utzenstorf - was a project for an intercontinental airport, located about 23 kilometers north of Bern and about 10 kilometers south of Solothurn.
During World War II, the government of the Canton of Bern created a study group to prepare a project. The obstacle-free area near Utzenstorf was deemed ideal, and the Canton then handed the project over the federal government.
Because of massive opposition to the project, mainly by farmers - some of the most fertile Swiss ground would have to be sacrificed for an airport - the swampy area near Kloten in the Canton of Zurich was finally selected by the Swiss government. Another advantage of Kloten was that the area already belonged to the federal government - it was a military training area.
In hindsight, Utzenstorf would have been the better place for a large airport: Today, both a highway and the newly built high-speed railway line Mattstetten-Rothrist would have supplied the airport with both passenger and freight connections. In addition, the airport operation would not be affected by the German frontier, as it is now the case with the airport of Zurich.