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Flights from East Anglia to Chambéry

 Poster: A snowHead
Poster: A snowHead
Quote:
Norwich International airport is introducing flights to Chambery, France, with specialist Crystal Ski.

This service starts on Saturday, January 8, 2005 and runs through until April 9, giving skiers in East Anglia the chance to enjoy a holiday without using a London airport.

See article
I'm not clear whether flight only trips can be booked...
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 Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
We had a few complaints last season (in the SCGB open forum ?) about Crystal's traffic overloading Chambery's super little airport terminal and also having some very long resort transfers from it. AFAIK, Crystal will not do flight only. You can do it the opposite way round by arranging your own transport and using them for the rest of the package.
Chambery is not the most reliable airport having a single short runway and frequent fog problems (it's at the end of a lake). Flights can be diverted to Geneva resulting in resort transfers from hell. Evil or Very Mad Evil or Very Mad Evil or Very Mad
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 Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Never flown there, and since moving to Bourg Saint Maurice have been hoping that Ryanair or someone would revive the former Buzz winter service. Chambéry is ideal, about a 60 minute drive for me, but from what you say there are problems!
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PG, when it works it's fine. I've been through 3 times (both ways) without any trouble but that was before Crystal bowled up. I'm not sure of the actual %age closure rate on the airport but the Nielson, Inghams and Crystal transfer reps hate being assigned to it because when it does go wrong it goes seriously wrong. For an independent traveller, it might not be so bad to be diverted.
It's 100% better that that horrible charter terminal in Lyons.
Last winter somebody was doing cheap flights Chambery - Southampton. If that comes back, any good for you ?
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 Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
FlyBe from Soton, I hope they revive it next season.... but when I go to the UK, rarely these days, it's the London area as a rule, so little choice but to fly from Lyon.
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 You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
PG wrote:
FlyBe from Soton, I hope they revive it next season.... but when I go to the UK, rarely these days, it's the London area as a rule, so little choice but to fly from Lyon.


Geneva and then you get Duty Free Very Happy
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 Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...
Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...
I used Chambery season before last - can't recall the operator I went with.
Had to wait hours for another flight to come in - so did not feel benefit inbound. Very crowded outbound.
Wasn't impressed.
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 After all it is free Go on u know u want to!
After all it is free Go on u know u want to!
No luck finding airport reliability data but here's a good shot of the Chambery Airport. It claims to be able to take a Boeing 767 - 200 but I've never seen anything bigger than a 737 there on my visits. And most planes were even smaller than that.
Hence the problem Nick had. Some package operators need to collect PAX from each of several different flights before they fill the coach and head off to the resorts.
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
See what you mean about the runway. Still, I like small airports, and Geneva's one of my pet hates - a shabby, unfriendly, expensive affair, with poor access (massive traffic jams on my last visit). Whereas the likes of St Etienne you watch the plane arrive (about one every few hours, out of season), you see the passengers coming off, and in no time they're in the arrivals 'lounge'. Quick and easy. If it wasn't for Ryanair, that is.
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Ski the Net with snowHeads
Zoom on Lac du Bourget in the airport link. Says it's the largest lake in France. Never heard of it .......... snowHeads forums in educational mode again.
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 snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
PG I am sure you already know this but Southampton Airport has its own railway station. Probably about an hour to Waterloo - so it may be worth considering.
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 And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
kuwait_ian wrote:
Zoom on Lac du Bourget in the airport link. Says it's the largest lake in France. Never heard of it .......... snowHeads forums in educational mode again.

Lac du Bourget, stay a night in one of the lakeside hotels and you could have paid for a week in Courchevel! Beautiful place, one of the most expensive places in France to buy property.
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 So if you're just off somewhere snowy come back and post a snow report of your own and we'll all love you very much
So if you're just off somewhere snowy come back and post a snow report of your own and we'll all love you very much
kuwait_ian wrote:
PG, when it works it's fine. I've been through 3 times (both ways) without any trouble but that was before Crystal bowled up.


When was that? Crystal have been using Chambéry since the 1980s. As well as fog windshear is a major problem at Chamb, it may look like a wide valley but apparently it is not. Insbruck is even worse, a TO jet hit the mountain side at Insbruck trying to land in poor weather.

Package holiday hell is when you are on the last leg of a W rotation, flying Crystal Bristol to Chambéry via Soton and both Lyon and Geneva have just refused your jet landing rights so you end up setting down in... Turin!

One problem with Chamb is the lack of flights during the week. This means all sorts of temporary staff are hired at the weekend... the airport director has been known to trail around the bars of Chamb looking for extra staff on a Friday night. This means that the chuckers are often untrained and it can cause additional delays loading flights.

Still the cattle shed at Lyon St Exupéry and the soviet era charter terminal at GVA are little better and a good deal further for passengers. Your point about PAX being assembled at the airport to fill coaches is a problem for all the airports.

Crystal will do flight only, I don't know if they release the seats this early as obviously they would like to sell a package. They will also do transfer only from airport to resort and back again. Be aware that the people who run transport for TOs are not stupid and usually like to get their flights in by early afternoon so don't rely on a transfer at 8pm to connect to your cheesyjet flight.

Why are transfers such a nightmare? Well the budget for each PAX is about 5UKP for coach transfer and around 30UKP for the flight. There is an enormous pressure to get bums on seats. As Ian mentioned this means filling coaches and planes with people from many resorts. Mathematically planning all this falls in a class of problems known as 'knapsack' problems, which are basically unsolvable except by trying all permutations. Throw some spanners in the works such as missing guests, closed airports, snow, broken down coaches and you can see why transfer day is a nightmare for reps and airport staff whereever they go. When you think a rep may be up from 2am on Saturday morning right through to Sunday lunchtime no wonder they don't always do a great job.
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 You know it makes sense.
You know it makes sense.
Mark Lehto wrote:
PG I am sure you already know this but Southampton Airport has its own railway station. Probably about an hour to Waterloo - so it may be worth considering.


Hmmm, it's more like an hour and a half really.

Just coincidentally though I've been checking the Flybe website for flights this very morning. Last year the winter Southampton to Chambery flights were only on Tuesdays and Thursdays, however they seem to have added Saturday and Sunday flights this year.

Some pretty decent looking prices as well. Just need to sweet talk my wife into letting me get a weekend in as well as the week to Solden that I've already booked.
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 Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Lager, you're right about Flybe. And they've added Geneva on Sats & Suns. See here from another thread


Last edited by Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name: on Sun 11-07-04 7:40; edited 1 time in total
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 Poster: A snowHead
Poster: A snowHead
davidof wrote:
kuwait_ian wrote:
PG, when it works it's fine. I've been through 3 times (both ways) without any trouble but that was before Crystal bowled up.


When was that? Crystal have been using Chambéry since the 1980s.


Sorry David - I meant bowled up en masse. I think last year was the first year Crystal routed their traffic for Serre Chevalier, Montgenevre and some other places previously served by Turin thro' Chambery and there were complaints the poor little place couldn't take the additional traffic. And that the road transfers if you did get into/through Chambery were horribly long and prone to the passes being closed. Your other points are valid and interesting. Flybe are now starting two mid week flights so the staffing situation may alter for the better. Re filling a coach - yes it can happen anywhere but I believe is worse in Chambery because so many of the planes are so small from regional UK airports and carrying PAX for more than one tour operator. So you need more of them to come in to consolidate the PAX for any given operator's resort or valley. Some operators to for example Geneva will put 200 of their own punters only onto one plane ex LGW - which fills a few coaches straight away. I have a great deal of sympathy for transfer reps - but not when they cannot converse with the bus drivers. Some Tour Ops should be shot at dawn for putting youngsters into that unenviable position.
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 Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
I flew Flybe S'ton to chambery last year and it was great, apart from a very early start. Parking at S'ton airport is cheap and we got a civic reception at Chambery as it was the first flight of the winter. Quite bizarre as no-one was expecting it. Caused a bit of a delay and I missed my train to Grenoble - but then it was a treat, and we all got goody bags as well.

It's a great shame that Easyjet bought Buzz and stopped the regular Grenoble flights - they were great for this part of the world.

I seem to remember a lot of discussion a couple of months ago about booking with Tour Operators - why, why, why? It's not so easy to do it yourself, and usually cheaper. snowHead
ski holidays
 Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
easiski wrote:

I seem to remember a lot of discussion a couple of months ago about booking with Tour Operators - why, why, why? It's not so easy to do it yourself, and usually cheaper. snowHead

Well, my skiing buddy and I often book our own flights and accommodation as well. But, espcially on a late booking, it can be hard to beat a package deal.
More than that, if you get stuck, there is a good chance the rep will sort the problem. On your own, it's up to you. Driving on my own, I once got stuck at Moutiers through avalanche problems with the road to Val and Tignes. The choice was to doss down on the town hall floor at Moutioirers (free) or stay in a very nice hotel at Brides les Baines (not free). I did the latter, had a wonderful night's sleep, and a great breakfast. But the additional cost came out of my own pocket (the travel insurance covered only disruption to public transport).
I have no gripes, and - as I said, often book transport myself. But it can be nice to have somene else to moan to when things go wrong Wink
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 You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
Quote:

It's not so easy to do it yourself
Sorry, of course I meant NOW! The typo appears not to have generated the usual ribbing !
I think insurance can be found to cover most things (including disruption), but my personal experience of reps is completely unprintable, and whenever I've been on a package holiday and something's gone wrong I've been the one to sort it out, as the reps either don't speak the language, or couldn't give a damn.
I work with them all winter, the vast majority are only interested in getting legless every night, bonking as much as possible and doing as little work as they can get away with!
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 Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
easiski wrote:
Quote:

I work with them all winter, the vast majority are only interested in getting legless every night, bonking as much as possible and doing as little work as they can get away with!


Sounds like my type of job!!!!!
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