Aviation Specials – May 2018

Extreme Airports // 55

Eyewitness

Courchevel is in the heart of the Alps, next

to the slopes of one of France’s best skiing

regions. Between the mid-1980s and the

late nineties, Tyrolean Airways came to

terms with the peculiarities of operating

scheduled passenger fl ights

into Courchevel

Altiport (CVF) using one of its most trusted

workhorses, the 50-seat de Havilland

Canada DHC-7 Dash 7. The high-altitude

airport (altiport) is unusual because it is

around 2,000m above sea level, and its

runway measures just 1,755ft (535m). The

fi rst 450ft (137m) is on a slope at a gradient

of 12.5%, the following 780ft (238m) is even

steeper at 18.5%, and only the last stretch of

345ft (105m) is fl at. The

diff erence in altitude between the lower and

upper thresholds of the infamously short

runway is a breathtaking 213ft (65m). All the

landings are up the slope, while departures

must run down it.

Tyrolean discontinued its Courchevel

operation when the last Dash 7s were

retired, but I was lucky enough to be one of

the ‘Courchevel pilots’. Thanks to the 150 or

so rotations I fl ew there, I came to know the

whole place like the back of my hand.

An extraordinary story

You may be wondering how Tyrolean

came up with the ‘crazy’ idea of using an

aircraft like the Dash 7 – which is anything

but small – to fl y to a high-altitude airport.

Here’s how it happened.

Michel Ziegler, Mayor of Courchevel at

the time, wanted to organise a scheduled

connection between Paris and his

town’s altiport ahead of the 1992 Winter

Olympics in Albertville, less than an hour’s

drive to the north. He knew Tyrolean had

an aircraft that was ideal for such a job

and, thanks to the airline’s operations at

Innsbruck, had extensive experience of

fl ying in the mountains. So, Tyrolean’s

staff seemed to be the logical people to

contact with his unusual request. The

talks went well, and it was agreed the

project should go ahead.

In 1984 fl ight operations manager

Captain Jürgen Hoch, his colleague

Captain Helmut Hitsch (both now

I came to know

Courchevel like the

back of my hand

COURCHEVEL

ABOVE: The

altiport is high

in the French

Alps. (Wikimedia

Commons / Peter

Robine )

LEFT: Tyrolean

Airways fl ew de

Havilland Canada

Dash 7s into

Courchevel on

behalf of French

carrier TAT.

(Markus Herzig)

56-62_Courchevel.indd 55 11/05/2018 12:14