Month: June 2026

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Braunwald Ski Resort to close

I was left in shock to hear that the perfect small ski resort of Braunwald in Glarus, Switzerland, will not be providing lift access or prepared pistes next winter.

Braunwald is not a big ski resort – it has 30km of piste – but it has some enjoyable runs and beautiful surroundings. What surprised me most was that the resort is very convenient for day trippers from Zürich, and it was very popular with snowboarders. The runs were between 1300 and 1905 metres, which is reasonable by the standards of many ski resorts, and is comparable with resorts like Villars and Wengen.

Earlier this month, Sportbahnen Braunwald said that it is adapting its services to changing climatic and economic conditions. It said that high costs and changing demand patterns had rendered the previous business model unsustainable. Through a series of workshops, a core and strategy group is to develop a shared vision for the future, but at this time that future does not look likely to include skiing.

Is it a victim of global warming? Almost certainly this has been the critical consideration. The worry is that other delightful small, but relatively low lying, resorts will close. Over recent years there has been some contraction in the operation of lift infrastructure in Switzerland with over 65 lifts no longer in operation. The Super Saint Bernard ski resort was closed in 2010, plans to re-open the Isenau lifts at Les Diablerets have foundered and some resorts have lost access to infrastucture providing access to the slopes, such as St Stephan on the Gstaad Mountain Rides circuit.

Higher resorts will weather global warming for some time to come, but their lower slopes will experience shorter and more unpredicatable skiable conditions. There is no appetite to build new ski infrastructure at higher altitudes on understandable environmental grounds. Will it lead to an increased appetite for ski touring? I think it is highly likely.

I personally feel sad that I will never be able to ski in the delightful resort of Braunwald again. To learn a little about Braunwald visit the Swiss Winter Sports web site.

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Flying to the Alps

The first package winter holiday by air was organised by Sir Henry Lunn in 1931. Through the 30s regular flights were flown by Swissair and Imperial from what was then the London Airport, in Croydon, to Zurich, but the flights were relatively expensive and most skiers took the train.

With the surplus of planes and pilots at the end of the Second World War and the emergence of a growing middle class, air travel for skiers became increasingly accessible in the 1950s. The 1960s saw companies such as Inghams and Erna Low transition from using trains to using planes for their ski packages.

Although Heathrow was established and regional airports became increasingly popular, the main hub for budget skiers taking to the skies was Luton Airport. And key to the success of Luton Airport was the building of the M1 in 1959, and the first concrete runway at the airport in 1960.
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By 1970, 53% of British households owned a car, and tour operators used the convenience of driving to Luton via the M1 as a major selling point, often highlighting cheap airport parking.
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Euravia (which later became Britannia Airways), the airline for Thomson’s Sky Tours brand, specifically chose Luton as its base in the early 1960s due to its long runway, low airport charges and proximity to the M1.
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By 1970, Luton and Gatwick handled over half of all British charter flight movements.

With the increasing glamour associated with skiing after the emergence of the FIS World Cup circuit in 1967 and the televising of “Ski Sunday” in 1978, ski holiday numbers mushroomed. From perhaps no more than 20,000 British skiers travelling to the Alps in the 1950s, more than a million took to the slopes by the end of the 1970s, the vast majority taking package holiday flights to get to the Alps.

In 1995 Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou launched the Easyjet brand, with the airline initially flying only out of Luton Airport. It has been headquartered there ever since.
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