 Poster: A snowHead
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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It took us an hour to get thru passport control a couple of weeks ago. Only 2 booths were manned and the officers were chatting and joking amongst themselves much of the time.
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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?
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Yes, that sort of attitude may be ok for off peak times, but not when they get greedy and ask for all those extra airline slots way in excess of their capacity. Outbound flights now being delayed because they cannot check-in or security check people fast enough to board the flights. We have been at the airport for 5 hours now.
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So I have complained to the regulator of slots at the other end....
Quote..
To Airport Coordination Limited
This is a passenger complaint about under-capacity at Chambery Airport. If ACL have any responsibility in scheduling slots at this airport, please be advised that at peak periods the airport is chronically busy owing to over-scheduling by TUI, Titan and others.
Gatwick and other destination schedules will be impacted by this delay.
We have been at the airport for 5 hours and in this time the airport / airline (Titan) have found it impossible to process the passengers for the flight in time. We are expecting a further delay of at least one hour and that will worsen evening inbound congestion at LGW.
If ACL are not involved in scheduling decisions for Chambery, I kindly ask you to refer this complaint and use your influence in making contact with those who are responsible.
For so many passengers this sort of experience damages the reputation of the entire industry.
Unquote.
I don't suppose venting like this will do any good. But any others affected may feel better... please feel free to contact them with a complaint!
😁
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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It is why Jet 2 no longer flies there I expect
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Yes, I will look more closely at the thread on airport and operator comparisons on snowheads before I book again. Despite all the traffic at peak, I think I would have preferred to drive and take my own time to get there and back!
The aeroplane is now 90 minutes late and has lost one cabin crew member, so 50 pax bags offloaded to travel with another airline to get the pax / crew ratio in limits.
Water has been offered as a refreshment.
I'd prefer somthing stronger .😁
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Not sure why the tour ops don't use Lyon more - IMHO, often preferable to over-crowded Gva or Chambery.
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@stephen buck, £. GVA and LYS are approaching or beyond capacity at weekends.
@mutineer, ACL does not control Chambery
@chrisb, Jet2 stopped flying there because of the weather factor and passengers voting with their money.
Passport control is ,sadly, nothing to do with the airport authorities. It is a government function.
Top tip- fly on a Sunday.
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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Anyone know how Grenoble compares?
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I've been to Chambery once during a quiet week in January, that was enough to tell me that it was too small for the number of flights it gets during winter.
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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We had trouble finding flights to Chambéry for the SFaB as quite a number of airlines had stopped flying there by that week. We ended up booking seats on a charter flight... I am now thinking it is a good thing reading above as hopefully with the reduction in number of flights it might be a bit better.
Is the root cause the increased checks when travelling into and out of schengen zones?
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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.
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Errr... anybody know why most of that post turned bold?
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@NickyJ, Yes, you're prob right re the Schengen zone - good point. Each passport took much longer to check than in prev yrs, yet they still only had 2 officers on duty - hence the frustratingly long queue and waiting time at Chambery.
Returning to Bristol, for the same no. of pax, there were 4 officers on duty, plus several of the new electronic machines, so no queue at all.
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You know it makes sense.
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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We flew in yesterday which is supposed to be the quietest week and it was still chaos at the baggage reclaim.
To be honest they managed passport control fine as they would only let one flight disembark at a time probably to help the lack of room in the baggage area rather than to stop the queue at passport control.
Crystal were there normal unorganised f.?( up.
After collecting our luggage for the reps told me that they did not have my coach info yet having checked there list and iPad. I was told to come back in 15 minutes, this went on for two more occasions until one of the staff went into the office and came back to tell me where the coach was.
When we got to the coach they had been waiting for us as the last guest for over 30 minutes, we would still probably be sitting in chambery now if I hadn’t made the rep go and check grr
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Poster: A snowHead
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@stephen buck, Grenoble is still too small for the amount of aircraft on a Saturday IMHO. Security can be a faff and the departure shed is nothing special. On the other hand it suffers less from the weather and has much better approach minima so a weather divert is unlikely. On the plus side I have been in seat 1a and been driving out of the carpark in 5 minutes (hand baggage only).
The other thing I would add to this topic is: effectively Chambery and Grenoble only have more than a couple of aircraft on 40 days of the year - a heck of a business model to make work. Also to run an airport you need a lot of specially skilled workers with strict security accreditation. I sometimes wonder how it works at all.
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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have used the 7am BA flight from City avoiding Saturday and it's a great system. Airport is going to have delays on busy times as it simply doesn't have the capacity. Not sure many are particularly good these days - Lyon and Geneva are large airports but queues for security on way back has become a problem recently
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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?
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| stephen buck wrote: |
| Returning to Bristol, for the same no. of pax, there were 4 officers on duty, plus several of the new electronic machines, so no queue at all. |
That makes a change, before the introduction of the machines I've found that the longest queues I've been in for Passport Control is at BRS.
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
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What’s the answer though?
Eurostar snow train from St Pancras to Bourg?
Or somewhere else ? Milan , Turin , Innsbruck ??
Or take complete control and drive ?
I never want to see Chambery airport ever again...the sight of the Red Cross setting up camps beds is now etched in my memory.
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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Our outbound flight was held in Edinburgh overnight last Saturday to avoid dumping us in the weather-related chaos, so we lost Sunday altogether to travel.
On Thursday we were told by Crystal that pick up from Tignes VC for Chambery on Saturday would be at 11:35 for the 18:50 flight. I complained immediately as the forecast indicated no traffic problems during the day (which indeed was the case - 3 hours drive time including stop at BSM for one passenger and a comfort break - very welcome - on the autoroute). At the airport we were told that the local authorities had given Crystal a Yellow warning for the roads on Saturday, and they didn't want a repeat of the previous week.
Having got to the airport 4 1/2 hours before the flight was due, we couldn't check in for 90 minutes. After check in we couldn't go to security until 18:50 - when the flight was due to depart! - due to some earlier logjam. The plane had actually arrived in Chambery about 20 minutes early and was sitting on the tarmac.
The terminal was just chaos. Completely mobbed - and of course we had been bussed there hours before we needed, leaving Tignes in glorious sunshine with the sight of happy skiers finally getting to ski down Double M, etc etc.
Once in boarding, we were called to the desk for boarding; half of us had been checked and the boarding card stubs torn off, when the process was halted and we were held for 20-30 minutes at the gate (beyond the gate boarding pass point), with nowhere to sit and no information.
We finally got airborne about 20:30 after the plane needed a jump start (was this due to being stuck on the apron for so long? I don't know, but I can't remember the jump start happening before).
To say I wasn't happy might be understating it....
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You'll need to Register first of course.
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@sheffskibod, Drive, but be able to be flexible and have winter tyres on 4x4/awd.
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| Quote: |
Or somewhere else ? Milan , Turin , Innsbruck ??
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Assume that you are being ironic suggesting Innsbruck; whilst I would avoid Chambery because it is a sh1**ole on Saturday’s, I remember an EasyJet pilot pulling out of two landings at Innsbruck landing at Munich to refuel, then having another couple of tries at Innsbruck before diverting to Salzburg.
Sadly I suspect that in a post Brexit world, French customs control will be even more apathetic to Brit skiers, but at least we will have blue passports 
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Crystal do like an excuse to get you back to airports early
Saves on the number of coaches
May have been a real warning re possible delays on the road but a would put money on not everyone on the bus was 4 1/2 hours early for their flights
It's all down to £££ they are relatively cheap but you get what you pay for
At the end of the day they need to make a profit like everyone else to survive
Last week it wouldn't have mattered if you were diy train or drive you were still going to get stuffed with the weather.
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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It should be renamed Shambery.
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@chocksaway Yes, Airport Coordination Limited only deal with constrained UK Airports such as Heathrow and Gatwick. However they were sympathetic and helpful - after all, the knock-on effect of such delays does not help planning or congestion at Gatwick.
For the others affected in this thread, in addition to your holiday operator / agent, you may wish to complain to:
The airline operator, in my case Titan Airways
Chambery Airport: itissot@chambery-airport.com or http://www.chambery-airport.com/en/services/suggestions-claims#page
The French Slot Co-ordinator, COHOR (http://www.cohor.org/en/) contact@cohor.org
The EU transport authorities: https://ec.europa.eu/transport/contact_en
Perhaps it's naiive to expect an improvement, but if we complain we provide ammunition for the regulators to do some work in applying pressure on the region / airport and operators to invest some of their profits greater capacity or more sensible scheduling.
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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It’s hardly a surprise, they do it every year. The way to change is to vote with feet/wallets...but people don’t do that because they want cheap flights.
Btw Geneva was hardly the pinnacle of Swiss efficiency on 30th December, if they were to take on some of the outflow from Chambery then it would be chaos too.
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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.
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@SnoodlesMcFlude, Exactly, Jet2 abandoned Chambery after two many problems that cost them money. Geneva is at capacity runway wise (especially if they have to de-ice), their only option is to cancel lucrative biz jet flying. Lyon has just opened a new terminal so may well be able to increase capacity, and with investment in more terminal facilities they certainly could. As could Grenoble but they need a bigger terminal and a lot more parking space for aircraft (they are currently limited to around 10 737 sized ac) which comes back to my previous point of investing for a 40 day a year business.
We could vote with our feet (or more likely wheels) but then we will add to the traffic chaos. There are no easy solutions, if there were the French would have sorted them out.
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| DavidYacht wrote: |
| Quote: |
Or somewhere else ? Milan , Turin , Innsbruck ??
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Assume that you are being ironic suggesting Innsbruck; whilst I would avoid Chambery because it is a sh1**ole on Saturday’s, I remember an EasyJet pilot pulling out of two landings at Innsbruck landing at Munich to refuel, then having another couple of tries at Innsbruck before diverting to Salzburg.
Sadly I suspect that in a post Brexit world, French customs control will be even more apathetic to Brit skiers, but at least we will have blue passports |
My real point is should I be looking somewhere else ? So avoid France mega resorts and go to e.g. Salzburg and local smaller resorts.
Or Bergamo and head for the dolomites?
Is there a lower stress route to a decent ski area ? With a major international airport within 2-3 hours that copes easily with the seasonal business.
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You know it makes sense.
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Whistler 
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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Poster: A snowHead
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Zürich then stress free rail transfer to a multitude of Swiss or west Austrian resorts. So much more civilised than the weekly cattle run to the French ski factories.
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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I have some sympathy with those suffering at Chambery and Geneva - I flew through Chambery once on a relatively quiet day and vowed never again - but wherever you choose and whatever means of transport you use there is always the potential for it to go wrong.
That said, I find the train is much more comfortable, and if it does go wrong you're probably stuck in a town rather than in an airport. A couple of years ago when the roads where completely stuck due to snow our train was about an hour late, but got us home in comfort, and because of the delay we were automatically refunded something like half the price.
Last year I flew from London City to Zurich on a Saturday, at a very civilized time, and as both are largely business-oriented rather than tourist-oriented airports they were empty and no queues at any point. From Zurich it is an easy train ride to many Swiss resorts - just as simple as from Geneva.
I tend not to choose the cheapest routes or times though, and normally book direct rather than through a tour operator, so there is less scope for getting messed around with timings. The flip side is that I don't have a tour operator to sort out transfers and emergency accommodation if something goes wrong, but I'm happy with that trade off.
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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?
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
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Chambery - been twice. First time both flights were diverted to Lyon, leading to long waits, transfers and much faffing at airport (when we were trying to land the pilot announced that he had only managed to land there twice all season so far, due to the size of the plane and the wind issues at Chambery). Second time, no real issues as was a Sunday but total scrum at check-in.
Innsbruck - will not fly there willingly ever again. Out of three holidays, I have only ever landed there once: first time we were directly re-routed to Friedrichshaven as it was closed due to snow, leading to a very long transfer. Last time, after a number of attempted landings we ended up diverting to Salzberg, where we had to wait hours for the buses to come to us. However, have always departed with no issues.
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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Maybe if you don't need 'big' skiing and want a cosy family time with good food and restaurants, then take the car to those nice little-known closer resorts like Winterberg in Germany (http://www.skiresort.info/ski-resort/winterberg-skiliftkarussell/test-result/snow-reliability/) or the resorts in the Alsace. Winterberg is 4 hrs drive from where I used to live in Holland and since then has had an amazing investment in snow-making kit... but very short runs. I don't know about resorts further East, which may also be ok in a cold snap....? Other suggestions for mob-dodging? (or do those in the know want to keep those quiet )
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FAQ
