Hundreds of business jets carrying approximately 2,500 heads of state and business leaders descended upon Zurich Airport late last week for the annual World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Anticipating a record number of delegates for this year's event, held Wednesday through Saturday, the local FBOs ramped up their operations.

Jet Aviation Zurich brought in additional staff from its Basel, Berlin and Dubai FBOs to handle 582 aircraft movements and 1,485 passengers in the days before and after the conference. “Our goal is to meet or exceed customer's' requirements and expectations, and when we learned that record numbers were expected this year, we drew on our FBO network for additional support,” noted Monica Beusch, general manager of the company’s Zurich facility and head of EMEA and Asia FBO services. The facility also reported selling nearly 235,000 gallons of jet-A and avgas during the course of the week.

Fellow Zurich service provider ExecuJet reported handling nearly 400 aircraft movements for the conference, including many long-range business jets. While the nearby military Dübendorf Airport had been used for overflow parking in the past, this year for the first time it was officially included in the planning as a receiver airfield with Swiss customs clearance and border control, as well as handling services provided by ExecuJet, which reported handling 22 aircraft there in addition to those at its Zurich facility. “The World Economic Forum is an extremely important and busy time for our Zurich FBO,” said Basil Gamper, the location’s manager. “We handled a record number of flights for visiting VIPs, including heads of state from Europe and other regions. In total ExecuJet sold almost 600,000 liters [158,500 gallons] of fuel at Zurich and Dübendorf combined, a company record for the event.”

Beyond Zurich, several other Swiss airports handled significant volumes of business aviation traffic associated with the World Economic Forum. The Air Service Basel FBO at EuroAirport Basel Mulhouse Freiburg reported a high volume of midsize and large-cabin business jets. Basel is approximately 145 miles from Davos.