As announced in the common Fly to Ski thread, I got organised for a family weekend ski trip from Belgium to Laax in Switserland via the LSZR Altenrhein St Gallen airport. My son and my brother joined me in the airplane, while my parents had made a long trip out of it and were already a couple of days in Switserland. My father is getting 77 years so he wanted to ski again with his family after corona. He still skied very well !
We had chosen LSZR as a base into the Alps because:
Our 1981 Piper Seneca III is based in Kortrijk, Belgium (EBKT) so we woke up early and were taxiing onto the runway at 06:02L in the morning, just after the opening of the airport. I had refueled beforehand.
Customs & police were both informed both in Belgium and in Switserland, but none of them bothered with us at any time.
Flight plan from EBKT – LSZR as per Autorouter, but executed on Foreflight with Jeppesen charts:
EBKT N0184F150 MAK1B MAK DCT GOLEX L607 GILOM M624 DIK N852 EXHOM/N0184F140 N852 GTQ/N0182F140 R7 PHALO/N0182F130 R7 LUPEN/N0180F130 Y711 NATOR T732 GARMO GARMO1H LSZR
Cruising at FL150 called for our oxygen masks to be used.
The weather was perfect CAVOK all the way to Switserland: rather exceptional so we were glad to be able to enjoy this. As usual we received a couple of good shortcuts over Belgium. We were passed to Luxemburg, then to Reims (France), then to Langen (Germany) from whom we got a direct GARMO for the SID.
Soon the Alps came in sight and we stayed north of it. We were vectored onto the ILS for runway 10, and the wind direction set us up for a circling approach to runway 28 after having broken off the ILS 10 approach at pattern altitude.
After 2h37m we landed in St Gallen. We were brought by the follow-me van to a remote location on the very busy and full airport, but still onto pavement. A courtesy van picked us up and brought us back to the terminal (didn’t have to pay for it).
We packed the airplane into its cover just to be sure, but with this weather all my ground snow and ice precautions (cover, TKS sprayer, broom) would not be needed this time.
My parents were waiting for us in the terminal and we drove together to Laax (1h12m) where we rented skis, bought the skipass and hit the slopes at 10:30L, my personal record for shortest own-bed-to-snow time: 6h15m :)
Weather was great, company warmly familiar, Switserland is expensive but worth it, and the skiing was perfect. Laax area is vast, well organised and not too busy. Snow quality was still good. Laax is mainly long blue and red slopes.
My parents stayed in Laax while my son, brother and me stayed in neighbouring Flims. We used my father’s car to shuttle when needed.
GA travel works if you organise it well, you have proper gear and you are trained. And as Hannibal said: “I love it when a plan comes together”.
We were able to ski Friday, Saturday and half of Sunday.
We stopped skiing at 12:00 on Sunday, dressed up, ate a little, drove back to Altenrhein airport and refueled. The airport was still very busy with business jets and the likes, but despite we didn’t pay for handling, they treated us well.
We took off a 15:00.
Routing:
LSZR N0173F090 ALAGO5L ALAGO Z5 LOKTA DCT UBASI DCT BADLI Q762 OLGAD DCT RUDOT Q762 LULAT Z104 TIPUT DCT MAPUP DCT LERVO DCT FERDI EBKT
All flying was very uneventful on FL160 with oxygen. Weather was again very cooperative. Some icing was forecast on descent over Belgium but somehow we avoided that.
2h02m minutes later we landed, and I was home by 18:00. My parents drove home by car and stayed one night over in Luxemburg.
Cheers !
Excellent trip! A really good read and photos, thank you Niner_Mike
Nice 
I wanna go skiing… just one more time this year
Great trip!
It’s funny that we (I for example) accept that CHF 121 in Switzerland is not so bad while EUR 120 in Italy is outrageous At the same time it’s expected to pay EUR 40 to 60 in Germany for the same service at similar sized airports and everything above is considered too much.
“Fly2Ski” reports still coming in… great! And again a nice trip!
Emir wrote:
It’s funny that we (I for example) accept that CHF 121 in Switzerland is not so bad while EUR 120 in Italy is outrageousGiven the fact that Switzerland is the most expensive country in Europe (together with Norway and Liechtenstein), the airport fees are actually not that bad, especially not in purchasing power terms. The fees might be higher compared to Norway, which is actually a cheap country for GA, but most Swiss airports are still reasonably priced. LSZR is already on the higher side of the scope. Depending on the aircraft and duration of your stay, their fees might be a bit higher than LSZH with handling from the aeroclub. Unlike elsewhere, even a “low approach” gets fully charged in LSZR.
