Ischgl ski area in the Austrian Tirol is replacing an old quad chairlift ahead of the coming ski season and spending more than £10 million on its replacement – a swish new eight seater.
But for lovers of ski statistics (and who isn’t?) one of the most remarkable aspects of the new Flimjoch lift is not its snug heated seats and weather-protection bubble but the fact that it will share one of its 16 towers with the another 8-seater chairlift, the Hollboden as the two routes cross above one another.
With both lifts able to quickly carry more than 3,000 skiers every hour (that’s very high capacity) up the mountain, this means that this one tower will support 6,900 skiers and boarders per hour – believed to be a world record.
The new Flimjoch chair, which has a €14m price tag, will have a new mountain station with an enclosed exit area. The lift it replaces had gone in to operation back in 1993.
Other ski area improvements at Ischgl include new ski run signage and 40 more of the latest propeller snowmaking machines to help the area maintain its reputation for a famously long ski season from late November to early May.
