Zürich Airport opened on 14 June 1948, when the first runway, a 1,900-metre strip designated 10/28, was inaugurated and a Swissair Douglas DC-4 lifted off for London. Civil operations had previously been concentrated at the shared military-civilian field at Dübendorf, but wartime growth and postwar ambition made a dedicated commercial airport a necessity. The canton of Zurich purchased land between Kloten and Oberglatt from the federal government, voters approved construction funding in May 1946, and work began that July. By November 1948, a second instrument runway had opened and all civil traffic had transferred from Dübendorf.

The airport's first permanent terminal opened in August 1953, modelled in part on Washington's National Airport and featuring a 183-metre spectator terrace along its facade. In its first full year of operation, 1949, the airport handled 176,412 passengers. By 1967 that figure had grown to more than 3 million. The introduction of jets, BOAC Comets began regular visits in 1959, forced successive runway extensions, and the airport expanded continuously through the following decades. The Airside Center, designed by architect Nicholas Grimshaw and completed in 2004, became the central hub connecting the airport's three concourses. Terminal E is reached via the Skymetro, an underground automated transit link.

Today ZRH is Switzerland's busiest airport and the primary hub for Swiss International Air Lines, a Lufthansa Group carrier and Star Alliance member. Carriers including Lufthansa, Emirates, Singapore Airlines, and Delta Air Lines also operate significant services. The airport handled 31.2 million passengers in 2024. A direct rail link beneath the terminal complex reaches Zurich Hauptbahnhof in under 15 minutes, giving the airport effective reach across the Swiss rail network and into southern Germany and Austria. Its position at the geographic centre of Europe has long made it a natural transit point between Western European capitals and long-haul destinations worldwide.