Swiss Stamp

zby Marc Baumgartner, IFATCA SESAR COORDINATOR

Every stamp tells a story that is not only of interest to a philatelist (stampcollector). Swiss Post issues a colourful palette of these miniature works of art in March, May, September and November each year. These stamps mark historical milestones, major sporting events, rare animal species, or famous comic strip characters. Each of these somehow connects to Switzerland, in line with the Swiss Post Philately's mission. Each stamp is available with or without a postmark, as an individual stamp, on a sheet of stamps or in many other formats. In preparation for the 100 years' celebration of air traffic control in 2022 and of the Swiss Air Navigation Service Provider, the CEO of Skyguide supported the suggestion of IFATCA's 100 Years of ATC task force to try to get a stamp created to mark this event.

This process, from bidding for a stamp to publication, takes over a year and is tightly regulated. Swiss Posts invites three graphic designers to create proposals. The graphic designers visited the tower, approach and en-route centre of Geneva and got a crash course in what air traffic control does. Based on the proposals, the stamp commission of the Swiss Post elects the best submission and commissions the graphic designer to create a range of products around the stamp. These are then available to buy in post offices throughout Switzerland and via their online shop.

The following text is from the Swiss Post website and explains why they created a stamp on the occasion of the 100 years of Air Traffic Control in Switzerland:

Our world is now hard to imagine without the services provided by a company such as Skyguide. And the history of air traffic control goes back almost as far as the art of flying itself. In Switzerland, it began a little over 100 years ago. The first attempts to transmit ground-toaircraft radiotelegraph messages in this country started as early as 1919. In 1921, the first concession was awarded to British company Marconi's Wireless Telegraph Co. Ltd. The founding of the subsidiary Marconi Radio AG on 23 February 1922 marked the birth of Swiss air traffic control. After various name and responsibility changes, Skyguide was founded in 2001. With 1,500 employees at 14 locations, the company provides air navigation services for civil and military flights throughout Europe's busiest airspace. Over these past 100 years, aviation has made incredible progress – as has air traffic control, which, along with radio, radar, instrument landing and other systems, now makes flying possible at any time of the day and in almost allweather conditions. The 210-centime dedicated stamp shows a snapshot of aircraft positions, as they would appear on Skyguide monitors, overlaying the motif of a modern passenger aircraft.y

z scan or click for the

Swiss Post website