Zurich Airport stops making announcements to the passenger public in French, as it admitted today after a report by the Tages-Anzeiger newspaper, which regrets the fact that the second more spoken language of Switzerland becomes “Lingua Non Grata”, unwanted.

Switzerland airport, with the largest traffic, now broadcasts its announcements only to German and English, with the reasoning promoting the idea of ​​a “quiet airport”, explained by Livia Kaluori, to the French Agency.

“This idea aims to reduce to a minimum of the number of announcements to promote the tranquility and comfort of our visitors,” he added, stressing that “the vast majority of European airports adopt a similar approach.”

Multilingualism is a thorny issue in Switzerland, which has four official languages: German, which is spoken by 62%of the population, French (21%), Italian (8%) and Romance (0.5%). Many Swiss are particularly tied to multilingualism, which is considered a characteristic of the country’s identity.

However, in its report, the Tages-Anzeiger newspaper observes that Zurich Airport now publishes its information only in German and English on its website, while Geneva Airport continues to publish information in three languages ​​(French, German and English).

The German -speaking newspaper also notes that Swissport, the company responsible for ground services, has stopped its announcements in French at Zurich Airport since July 2024.

However, these messages in French, next to German and English, were one of the signs that travelers landed in Switzerland, just like the “endless” shelves with chocolates in tax-free shops or watch stores, Tages-Anzeiger points out.

This practice has been in place “for a few years”, recalled by the Zurich Airport spokesman. The announcements are made in the languages ​​understood by the wide majority of passengers “but employees who know other foreign languages ​​such as French continue to” use them “to help travelers, he added.

“The decision in relation to the languages ​​used for the announcements belongs to the airport exploitation or airlines,” said Natalie Bercold, the spokesman for Swissport.

The company therefore implements “its customers” instructions, but added, however, that it is always likely to be found a French -speaking partner “, as a large number of Swissport officials speak French.

At the departure gate, flights to French -speaking countries are announced in French.

In 2024, the airport received 31.2 million passengers, approaching the record in 2019 with 31.5 million passengers.