Basel is an important city and needed a bigger airport. Why not build it in another country then. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage, and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.
Todays stamp is attractive with vivid colors. It is a little strange though that Swiss stamp would have the tail of a Air France jet to go with Swissair tail. I also like that the Swiss included the name of this stamps designer, Heinz Burgin. It is not often we get to see on a stamp who the designer was. Switzerland started this practice on commemorative in the late 30s and has continued till the present day.
Todays stamp is issue A278, an 80 Rappen/ Centimes stamp issued by Switzerland on February 21st, 1979. It was part of a four stamp issue in various denominations celebrating Swiss engineering achievements. This stamp celebrates the then recent expansion of the Basel Mulhouse International airport, as it was then known. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth $1 used.
In the 1930s the Swiss developed an aviation plan that called for 5 cities to have major airports, among them Basel. Basel already had a small airport but it had no way for it to be expanded to the proper size. The idea was arrived at to build the new airport on the other side of the border in France. Negotiations for this were halted during World War II, but got going again soon after wars end. A deal was struck that the resulting airport would be jointly administered by the French and the Swiss. The land for the airport was provided at no cost by the French and the Swiss Canton of Basel-Stadt was to provide the entire construction budget.
So anxious were the Swiss to get the project moving that the airport was built and operating in 1946 two years before the treaty that governs how the Airport operates was ratified. The Airport actually has three different airport codes depending on whether you think you are going to Basel, the French City of Mulhouse or the nearby German city of Freiburg.
A road was set up from the terminal to Basil that provided a way to get there without going through French customs. Passport control is jointly manned by the French and the Swiss and your passport can receive a different stamp depending on which agent you walk up to.
The Swissair plane would not be seen at Basel any more. Swissair went through bankruptcy and the smaller successor was soon acquired by Lufthansa, the German flag carrier. The planes still have the Swiss livery. The decision was taken to stop flying to Basel because of the many low cost airlines that operate out of it, most notably Easy Jet. It is still possible to fly Air France to Paris from Basel.
This stamp celebrates the expansion of the airport. This expansion has been almost continual since it opened in 1946. This expansion has been necessary. At the time of this stamp in 1979 annual traffic through the airport was about 700,000 a year. Last year it was more than 10 times that amount.
Well my drink is empty and so I will pour another to celebrate the Canton for being so quick to get the airport operating. I don’t see how such a thing could happen today, perhaps China excepted. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.