I am planning a fly to ski in February, with a colleague from work. That means, ex full TKS i.e. minus 50kg on the payload, I can’t take a 3rd person and all the gear 
These trips are really hard to organise, with wx and all that.
I am not surprised that almost nobody does it.
The two PDFs posted by Bosco and lionel are different.
Jujupilote wrote:
You would need a french speaker
On the ‘VAC’, it does not mention A/A (Fr Only) but only A/A, so It does not seem to restrict to French there… But no customs and no immigration.
Peter wrote:
The two PDFs posted by Bosco and lionel are different.
I posted the PDF of “regulated charges”, that is charges that have to be approved by the authority (not sure which one; maybe a national one, maybe the regional economic development committee or something like that). I completely missed the question of handling (which I gather is not a “regulated charge” and not mentioned at all in that PDF). Boscomantico posted the informative PDF prepared for GA, which includes handling. Much more useful :)
On the ‘VAC’, it does not mention A/A (Fr Only) but only A/A, so It does not seem to restrict to French there…
Discussed a hundred times here. Technically, you are correct (just because it is A/A does in most cases not mean it is FR only), but practically speaking, when you fly to such aerodromes, you have to expect the other traffic to not speak English on the radio (and not be able or willing to switch to English once you come around.) That’s why most pilots who can’t really do the radio in French usually prefer aerodromes with an active TWR or (English-speaking) AFIS.
Chambery has this too;
Again, here they mainly seem to want to hit the bizjet community (with their pesky ops assistants making reservations everywhere), but still, I really wouldn‘t go there in winter.
Yeah… however my take is that any “fly to ski” has to be on a very short notice; a few days’ max.
One doesn’t want to do it unless the wx is nice for skiing. In Dec I had a week in the normally wonderful Madonna di Campiglio in roughly OVC000/10m and on one day it dramatically improved to OVC001/200m. It is rare but clearly can happen.
Then you have the “canyon airports” (Bolzano, Zell, etc) which need pretty well CAVOK all the way to outer space. With those one should not even depart until the webcam shows a clear sky.
So these cancellation charges are an issue only if you had to book parking a long time ahead.
Also it works only if your passenger(s) lives just down the road – because you may cancel on the morning of the flight.
Which airport would be more suitable for Tignes etc, for a direct flight from the UK?
Well, with Grenoble-St.Geoirs now also on the extortion trip,
and if you want only “full service” airports (English comms, customs, Avgas, IFR), and only airports in the flatlands,
then indeed, it looks like Lyon-Bron is the “closest” one…
But at over three hours by car to Tignes, it all doesn’t make sense by GA.
Last week, I’ve visited LSZE (Bad Ragaz) once again. Very nice little aerodrome with paved runway, direct next to the “Pizol” gondola. One can literally just walk from the parking position to the valley station in just 5 minutes. Another alternative is to take a short taxi drive (or bus from the Pizol valley station) to the railway station, from which you can travel to big nearby ski resorts like Arosa-Lenzerheide, Laax, Flumserberge or even St. Moritz if you want to avoid LSZS.
To be honest, it is not the easiest aerodrome to land in, but with some mountain experience and suitable aircraft for the runway dimensions (495×11 m), it is imho doable. The crane on short final rwy 30 is gone now, which made the approach the most challanging in the past. Due the fact that the elevation is only 1.617 ft, snow is not often an issue here. One can reach LSZE quite easy via the very wide Rhine valley from the Bodensee, without the need to fly over a mountain pass or narrow valley. One issue: Non-home-based aircraft cannot request for customs, so this should be done in LSZR or another Swiss international aerodrome. Also PPR is needed, which is not a problem if the runway is not covered by ice.
Peter wrote:
Does anyone know the charges etc at Chambery LFLB?Handling is not mandatory for most of us. I personnally don’t need things like VIP terminal and red carpet, and I can taxi my plane to the fuel station and not pay the fuel truck coming to the park stand. That’s why I only reported on landing and parking in my previous post.
boscomantico wrote:
then indeed, it looks like Lyon-Bron is the “closest” one…That’s why I also included it above. Even if you skip the bus and go by rental car, landing is all but garanteed, service is good and flexible, and fees are predictable.
Peter wrote:
I am planning a fly to ski in February, with a colleague from work. That means, ex full TKS i.e. minus 50kg on the payload, I can’t take a 3rd person and all the gear
Peter why dont you look into skiing from Klagenfurt LOWK it hits all the points you are looking for in an airport and the Ski mountain is Intermediate easy? Gerlitzen Ski Mountain 30 mins from the airport or Bad Kleinkirchheim for more slopes which is 1 hour away.
81 Euros landing and parking for 3 days. Rental car was 167 Euros for 3 days. Lift tickets are also not too bad and I have a friend who has a house in Ossiach for rent that is 20 mins away from the mountain.
I was supposed to go last week but hurt my back pushing what? The plane. We postponed the trip till the 3rd of Feb.
Take a look.
