Nonstop flight route between Zürich, Switzerland and Fairford, England, United Kingdom:

About this route:

A direct, nonstop flight between Zurich Airport (ZRH), Zürich, Switzerland and RAF Fairford (FFD), Fairford, England, United Kingdom would travel a Great Circle distance of 547 miles (or 880 kilometers).

A Great Circle is the shortest distance between 2 points on a sphere. Because most world maps are flat (but the Earth is round), the route of the shortest distance between 2 points on the Earth will often appear curved when viewed on a flat map, especially for long distances. If you were to simply draw a straight line on a flat map and measure a very long distance, it would likely be much further than if you were to lay a string between those two points on a globe. Because of the relatively short distance between Zurich Airport and RAF Fairford, the route shown on this map most likely still appears to be a straight line.

Departure Airport Information:

Arrival Airport Information:

Facts about Zurich Airport (ZRH):

• Edelweiss Air has its head office in the Edelweiss Air Operations Center on the airport grounds.gategroup has its head office on the airport property.Helvetic Airways has its head office on the grounds of the airport in Kloten.
• In addition to being known as "Zurich Airport", another name for ZRH is "Flughafen Zürich".
• The furthest airport from Zurich Airport (ZRH) is Chatham Islands (CHT), which is nearly antipodal to Zurich Airport (meaning Zurich Airport is almost on the exact opposite side of the Earth from Chatham Islands), and is located 12,087 miles (19,453 kilometers) away in Waitangi, Chatham Islands, New Zealand.
• The closest airport to Zurich Airport (ZRH) is Emmen Swiss Air Base (EML), which is located 28 miles (45 kilometers) SSW of ZRH.
• The first flights off the west runway were not until 1948.
• A treaty was signed in 2001, regarding the limitation of flights over Germany.
• Zurich Airport (ZRH) has 4 runways.
• Zurich Airport handled 24,865,138 passengers last year.
• Schengen and non-Schengen arriving passengers are handled in separate areas of the central airside building, with non-Schengen passengers passing through immigration controls to reach the ground-side terminal complex.
• Rega, the air rescue service, has its head office in the Rega Centre, a hangar located in the northeast section of Zurich Airport.

Facts about RAF Fairford (FFD):

• In the early years of the Cold War the British and American governments reached an agreement under which elements of the USAF Strategic Air Command would be based in the UK.
• RAF Fairford was constructed in 1944 to serve as an airfield for British and American troop carriers and gliders for the D-Day invasion of Normandy during World War II.
• Due to the deteriorating airfield facilities and its unique NATO heavy bomber mission, RAF Fairford underwent a $100 million upgrade of its runway and fuel systems in the largest NATO funded airfield construction project within a NATO country since the end of the Cold War.
• Operations staff and maintenance personnel were permanently assigned, but aircraft, aircrews and crew chiefs were temporarily assigned to the 11th Strategic Group for the European Tanker Task Force on rotation.
• The furthest airport from RAF Fairford (FFD) is Dunedin International Airport (DUD), which is located 11,898 miles (19,148 kilometers) away in Dunedin, Otago, New Zealand.
• The closest airport to RAF Fairford (FFD) is RAF Brize Norton (BZZ), which is located only 10 miles (16 kilometers) ENE of FFD.
• In 1950, as a result of the beginning of the Cold War, the airfield was transferred to the U.S.
• RAF Fairford was the only TransOceanic Abort Landing site for NASA's Space Shuttle in the UK.