The Federal Administrative Court has annulled last week a decision of the Federal Appraisal Commission regarding the reference date for the foreseeability of east approaches.

On December 17th, 2007 the Federal Appraisal Commission decided, January 1st, 1961 to be the relevant reference day for the foreseeability of the east approaches. Scores of landowners filed a complaint against this decision with the Federal Administrative Court. Last week the Federal Administrative Court annulled the adjudication of the Federal Appraisal Commission. The reference day for the foreseeabilitiy of the east approaches was determined by the Federal Administrative Court to be May 23rd, 2000.

Unique (Flughafen Zürich AG) regrets the adjudication of the Federal Administrative Court. We will thoroughly analyse the reasoning of the judgement in the next days and most probably will appeal against the decision at the level of the Swiss Federal Court.

Despite the above mentioned judgement of the Federal Administrative Court, Unique (Flughafen Zürich AG) has nevertheless no cause to adjust the estimated 'most likely' noise-related costs of total 759.8 million Swiss Francs upwards. This is based on the fact, that these estimated costs contain assumptions about the final judgements on the opened questions by the courts. The reference day for the foreseeability in the east has been one of these assumptions. Hence, Unique (Flughafen Zürich AG) stays with the still as realistic considered estimate of total noise-related costs with the amount of 759.8 million Swiss Francs. For this reason there is no change in the amount of the noise charges due to the Federal Administrative Court decision planned.