J2Ski Forum Posts and Replies by SwingBeep

Lotschental is the name of the valley, the ski area is actually called Lauchernalp. It's a very snowy place with lots of off piste, unfortunately it doesn't officially open until the 19th https://www.loetschental.ch/en/winter/ski-arena

February is high season so you are unlikely to find any packages. The tourist offices sometimes organise accommodation + lift pass packages at the beginning and end of the season, but ski hire and instruction aren't included, so you will almost certainly have to purchase each component separately.

In the smaller out of the way resorts there is very little demand for children's skiing lessons outside local school holiday times as most of skiers are French. The ESF might offer mini group lessons (classes of 6), which will cost more than the normal group lessons, but less than private lessons. The local ESF website should have details.

The package skiing holiday is a British invention, it predates the WWW and the budget airlines, before then organising a diy skiing holiday wasn't as easy as it is today.

Most French skiers ski in France, organising a holiday is pretty easy they just have to book some accommodation and drive to the resort.

Looks like AirBosnia might not make it through the winter https://simpleflying.com/flybosnia-a319-sacks-staff/

You would struggle to make it up! With very few exceptions funiculars are used as feeder lifts to bring skiers up to the skiing area, once there they prefer to use circulating lifts.

In the original design the track was to be supported on a galvanised steel structure, as is usual for elevated funiculars of this size. In order to cut costs, it was decided construct the supporting structure out of concrete. The contract was awarded to a local firm who had no previous experience of building funiculars, but whose chairman just happened to be the chairman of HIE.

It would appear that the concrete supporting structure was badly designed and poorly constructed and that before it can be put back into operation the foundations, piers and beams will all have to be strengthened. As the thing has never made any money it would probably be best if they removed it, unless of course they can get a shed load of money from south of the boarder to fix it!

To make matters worse they have now decided to limit the number of skiers to 1000 a day, which will no doubt discourage even more people from skiing there.

If my interpretation is correct then it is certainly good news. It would be a good idea if someone could obtain confirmation from the EU. As J2SkiNews is a journalist maybe he could do a bit of sleuthing, he might even be able to sell an article or two to the MSM.

EU residents hiring cars in Switzerland and driving them back into the EU before the regulation was amended were taking a considerable risk as they were evading VAT and import duties to the tune of several thousand euros. Serial offenders such as yourself often receive a custodial sentence if caught.

Compliance with customs regulations is nothing to do with the car hire companies, it is the sole responsibility of the person hiring the car. It looks like French customs didn't carry out any checks, but other EU countries did. Last Christmas (after the amended regulations came into force) it was reported in the local press that Italian customs had confiscated a Bentley that an Italian guy had hired in Switzerland. It might be an idea to download Delegated Regulation (EU) 2018/1063 and save it on your phone just in case.

In general driving cars especially ones for which you are not the registered owner from third countries into the EU is a legal nightmare. Our family car is registered in my name, when another family member wants to drive it into the EU I have to give them written permission, otherwise they could be liable for VAT and import duties. The Swiss equivalent of the AA has a form that you can download, the fields are labelled in several European languages including English, it might come in handy in the near future https://www.tcs.ch/mam/Digital-Media/PDF/Info-Sheet/bewilligung-zur-benutzung-eines-fahrzeugs-durch-drittpersonen.pdf

If you look at the EU web page on car hire https://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/travel/driving-abroad/car-rental-abroad/index_en.htm it states that if you are an EU resident and intend to drive a car hired outside the EU back into the EU you have to ask the rental company for an EU-registered car otherwise you are in breach of EU customs law.

Fortunately, this information now appears to be out of date. If you scroll down to Article 197a and take a look paragraphs 24 and 25 in Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2018/1063 of 16 May 2018 amending and correcting Delegated Regulation (EU) 2015/2446…… https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=uriserv:OJ.L_.2018.192.01.0001.01.ENG&toc=OJ:L:2018:192:TOC
They have amended articles 215 and 218 of Delegated Regulation (EU) 2015/2446 as follows:

(24) Article 215 is amended as follows:
(a) the following paragraph is inserted:
'2a. Natural persons who have their habitual residence in the customs territory of the Union shall benefit from total relief from import duty in respect of means of road transport which they have hired under a written contract concluded with a professional car hire service and which they use privately.';
(b) paragraph 4 is deleted;

(25) in Article 218, the following paragraph is added:
'4. In the case referred to in Article 215(2a), the means of road transport shall be re-exported within 8 days of having been placed under the temporary admission procedure.';

It looks like the regulations have been returned to what the were under the old customs code. Now all you have to look out for are the speed cameras!

SwingBeep wrote: But as it's Italy you can never be sure.

According to article in today's edition of La Stampa posted on Sauzeonline's Facebook the link will be open this season. From what I can make out they have installed new "elastic structures to protect skiers"

The issue might be that the windbreaks weren't fitted with either crash pads or safety netting. I don't know what the Italian regulations say, but here in Switzerland structures like that should be a fitted with crash pads or safety netting.