New Airline To Offer Swiss Ski Routes Launching For 2017-18 Season

A brand new airline which will fly skiers and boarders from eight UK airports to the Swiss Valais airport of Sion is set to launch in December.

PowdAir, plans to offer 40 flights per week throughout the ski season with services operating from Thursday to Monday each week.

Sion airport is well placed for easy access to the resorts of Verbier, Nendaz, Zermatt, Crans Montana, Anzère, Leukerbad and Zinal-Grimentz. Transfers to these resorts from Sion is normally quicker than other entry airports, meaning significantly reducing transfer times.

The UK airports PowdAir will use include London Southend, Manchester, Bristol, Southampton, Edinburgh, Liverpool, Leeds-Bradford and Newcastle.

The average ticket price will be approximately £100 - £150 per person each way including free ski carriage. The airline will use a Fokker 100 aircraft on all routes, seating 109 people – flight times are typically between 1 hour 25 minutes and 2 hours from UK airports.

"PowdAir is working closely with Sion Airport to develop the new service with a capacity to fly 8,000 passengers a month," said PowdAir spokesperson Rob Stewart who added, "With a customer service base in Sion and a strong team of investors and senior management behind the project, we are excited to help launch an airline route that serves the most popular ski resorts in Switzerland, making the journey for people in the UK quicker and easier."

Tickets will be available to purchase in April 2017 online at www.Powdair.ski

Or http://www.powdair.ski

As well as the UK airports they are also planning to fly to Brussels and Rotterdam. In the first year they are going to use a 25 year old Fokker 100 wet leased from the Croatian airline Trade Air. Sion is a very tricky place to fly into, because of a bend in the valley the last 5 miles have to be flown visually unless the aircraft is fitted with a GPS based instrument landing system. As the aircraft is so old I doubt if it is fitted with one.

Interestingly the company is only registered as Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) limited company in the UK at the moment, as they say they will have to set a company in the EU to avoid problems with the European Aviation Safety Agency after Brexit.