boscomantico wrote:
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.
Grenoble only charges mandatory handling for movements on Saturday in ski season, the rest of the week is not an issue. Here’s why:
You can take this one out 
How far is a car journey from Grenoble LFLS to Tignes, roughly, allowing for roads which may be shut down? Google suggests 4 hours but those are transfer services which may be stopping enroute. This is a lot less
I keep getting mixed up between Grenoble and Chambery Chambery is much closer, although the transit time is probably not that different because the Grenoble-Chambery road section is a fast one. The difference for a car seems to be about half an hour.
Which dates would you be looking at @pilot-h?
No real interest here (again ).
I think it’s because nobody wants to commit until they know the wx will be good, which is understandable. Ski fly-ins are extra hard.
I won’t be doing Tignes. It is 2-3hrs’ drive from any usable airport. I’ve just spoken to a ski crazy guy who has just been there and apparently there were massive queues for everything. I normally get up at 6am so I am at the start of the queue, but that is not possible at Tignes where the queues start early.
I will look at C210’s suggestions above. We need to make this easy.
Peter, Tignes/Val d’Isere is a very popular resort but a pain to fly into commercial or GA. Getting there from the airports involves a single lane slow road and is mind numbing. It isn’t that busy re queues if you go outside school holidays and has an amazing amount of terrain but logistics are not great. At your level of skiing, the smaller, easier to get to resorts will be less hassle and will be as much if not more fun.
Regarding ski fly-in, I think the unbeatable solution is Courchevel.
I skied there last year but didn’t came by air. I was suppose to do my rating this summer but didn’t got the time to do it…
One of my friend has his rating and we will do it this winter but will decide it last minute to have great flying and skiing conditions.
I’ve done Courchevel and IMHO there are far better places for skiing It was ok but nothing special, and quite busy. Amazingly expensive too but skiing is not a cheap hobby…
The airport needs a signoff, plus it has no customs/immigration anymore – an extraordinarily dumb decision, it would appear, given that it’s full of Russians who are throwing money around like there was no tomorrow.
I got spoilt at Cervinia Did all the reds I found there. Well accessible from Aosta LIMW but I’ve done it this winter already. Would do it again though if others were interested.
By the way the reason Chambéry Annecy and Grenoble has this stupid restriction about charging you for handling if you don’t show is because mainly for Annecy and Chambéry you need to apply for slots and there are very little (they share the same approach).
So everybody apply for slots and when the weather is ok the PC-12 operators are all going to Courchevel.
I witness this situation I was based in Annecy for two winter..
Peter wrote:
Which dates would you be looking at @pilot-h?
Picking a settled period but definitely after the February half term which spans most of Feb – it gets way too busy, so from beginning of of March to early April – and ideally in and out between Sunday – Friday.
I wonder if that issue is worst in the resorts to which most people turn up in a car? Ski holidays by airline are really expensive if you have a bunch of kids
I’ve done February trips the last few years and don’t recall a particular issue.
It is always the case – well, except for Cervinia which was amazing – that one gets an hour or two of largely empty slopes and then it goes downhill, so to speak.
This is Cervinia, 23rd January, 11:25 local time
Due to some unforeseen issues I wont be going skiing to LOWK till March. At which time I will give a detailed trip report.
