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SKIING

Winter sports: Swiss cable cars to introduce capacity restrictions

Large cable cars and gondolas in Switzerland will be capped at 70 percent due to Covid fears.

The view outside a gondola in Switzerland
Large gondolas - with a capacity greater than 25 people - will have their capacity reduced to 70 percent under new rules. Photo: Photo by Hannes Netzell on Unsplash

Switzerland’s ski areas are open and plenty of snow has already been delivered. 

While the Covid certificate and other protections are not required to go skiing in Switzerland, Swiss Cableways – the organisation in charge of cable cars – will cap gondola capacity at 70 percent due to Covid concerns. 

EXPLAINED: Everything tourists should know about skiing in Switzerland

This voluntary measure will apply from December 18th, 2021 and will only be applicable to large cable cars, i.e. with a capacity greater than 25 people. 

The measure will only apply to enclosed cable cars. 

The association will also put in place additional distance protections in queues. 

The association wanted to avoid the current situation whereby a patchwork set of rules apply at different ski fields in different parts of the country, Swiss tabloid Blick reports. 

As the rules are being put in place on a voluntary basis, they will be monitored by the ski resorts themselves.  

A Covid certificate is not required to ski or to take cable cars or gondolas.

READ MORE: Switzerland will not require Covid certificate for winter sports

It is, however, obligatory in bars and restaurants in the ski area, although people eating and drinking on outdoor terraces and balconies will not need it.

But you will also need a certificate to access fitness centres, as well as indoor entertainment venues like clubs.

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WEATHER

Swiss avalanche kills one person and injures another

An avalanche in Reckingen in the southeastern Wallis region of Switzerland killed a 68-year-old on Saturday, while a second person was injured, police said.

A man uses a machine to clear a path through the snow in the ski resort of Wengen in the Swiss Alps
A man uses a machine to clear a path through the snow in the ski resort of Wengen in the Swiss Alps. Lionel BONAVENTURE / AFP

The two were part of a group of four Italian hikers and were quickly found and freed from the snow by the other two. One died at the scene and the other was airlifted to hospital.

According to a provisional report by the MeteoSwiss weather service on Friday, people have been caught up in 45 avalanches so far this winter.

It urged people to be “careful, careful, careful”.

On Thursday, one person died and several others were injured in avalanches in Switzerland’s Graubunden region, which borders Austria’s Tyrol where avalanches have killed nine people over the last three days.

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