Basel Sternenfeld

47°33'22"N 007°37'50"E

Flying field: 1000x500m - grass

Basel-Sternenfeld airfield (german: Flugplatz Basel-Sternenfeld, also known as Basel-Birsfelden) was an airfield east of Basel (Basle), Switzerland.
The airfield was built in 1920 as a combined civilian-military airfield. It immediately began to develop international air traffic, and by 1923 it had become one of the most important airfields in Europe. Handley-Page Ltd. flew to the airfield on its London-Paris-Basle-Zurich line. Shortly after Belgian airline Sabena followed with a line Amsterdam-Brussels-Basle. By 1924 the airfield was connected to the 4 most important European metropoles. Balair was founded in Basle in 1925, one of the companies that later merged into Swissair.


Sternenfeld airfield, presumably 1920s. The aircraft in the foreground is Caudron C-59 registered CH-125 (Staatsarchiv Basel-Stadt)


Fokker F-VIIa of Balair at Sternenfield, April 1928 (Staatsarchiv Basel-Stadt)

By 1926 as many as seven airlines flew to the airfield, which was rapidly getting too small. This led to the construction of a new station building and a hangar. On 13 October 1930 30,000 people were drawn to the field to see the Graf Zeppelin (LZ 127) land.
Until World War II the airfield developed to a share of 36.5% of all Swiss air traffic into the most important Swiss airfield. 10 airlines flew to the airfield, handling 22,447 passengers and 448 tonnes of cargo to 13 destinations in 1938.


Map of Basel-Birsfelden in 1931 (PENNULA.de)


Fokker F-VII-b/3m, registered CH-165 (HB-LAN) during the opening of the route Basle-Amsterdam-Basle in MArch 1931 (Staatsarchiv Basel-Stadt)


Swiss Air Lines Douglas DC-2 HB-ITA at Sternenfeld in June 1936 (Staatsarchiv Basel-Stadt)


Map of the airfield in 1934 (image provided by Volker Böhme)


Aerial photo of the airfield, taken in April 1934 (Staatsarchiv Basel-Stadt)


Map of Basel-Sternenfeld in June 1939 (image provided by Volker Böhme)

As early as in 1929 it was recognised that the airfield was becoming too small. Additionally plans existed for a powerplant and a ships sluice nearby, which would further hinder air traffic. As a result, plans were made to move the airfield to another location.
World War II made the search more urgent, as the airfield was located virtually on the border with Germany. The larger aircraft that emerged after the war made a move more urgent and in 1950 the airfield was closed after international air traffic was moved to the new Basle-Mulhouse Freiburg airport.


Undated aerial photo of the airfield, believed to have been shot in the late 1940s-early 1950s (Staatsarchiv Basel-Stadt)

Today, the area is built over by a residential area, the port of Birsfelden and a lock and sluice system. Nothing remains of the former airfield.


The location of the former airfield in 2009 (Google Earth)