Three flights, two weeks’ isolation for 8-hour job
It took three flights from Switzerland and two weeks in managed isolation to get a specialist technician to Queenstown’s The Remarkables ski area for an eight-hour job.
Hannes Koller is one of only a few people in the world with the technical splicing skills to connect the ends of the steel rope on a chairlift.
He was scheduled to complete the job on new $17 million Sugar Bowls chairlift in March, but Covid-19 restrictions meant he was unable to make the journey.
With The Remarkables desperate to get the work completed after 18 months of delays, Doppelmayr New Zealand general manager Garreth Hayman began four weeks of ‘‘constantly badgering’’ politicians to let Koller into the country.
Once he was classified as an essential worker for the tourism industry, and arrangements made to cover the cost of his isolation, the next challenge was getting him to New Zealand.
It took a week to find the first flight, but as he was about to board he was told he was not flying, due to a rule change in Hong Kong.
A second flight via Australia was also cancelled at the last minute when his transiting paperwork was not correct.
The third flight, via Melbourne, almost three weeks after the first attempt, was successful.
‘‘We were quite happy when we got a phone call to say he was in Auckland,’’ Hayman said.
Koller said after two weeks in isolation and three Covid-19 tests it was a ‘‘[expletive] good’’ feeling to finally be on the mountain doing the work, although he didn’t usually work in snow.
Having had about two months with no work he was feeling stiff in his neck and hands.
Koller is also tightening ropes at the Skyline gondola in Queenstown and Porters Ski Area – a total of about four days work — before going home next week.
Ski area manager Ross Lawrence said he was disappointed the ‘‘start-of-the-art’’ chairlift would not be ready for use when the ski season opened today.
‘‘There’s a lot of anticipation out there,’’ he said.
However, it would be completed in a few weeks, after some New Zealand-based Doppelmayr staff worked with their Austrian counterparts.
NZSki announced plans to replace the 32-year-old four-person Sugar Bowl chairlift in 2018 with a 1.05km-long six-seater and 2.5km of new trails.
New Department of
Conservation processes and concern raised by botanist and conservationist Sir Alan Mark and Forest and Bird about the effects on the landscape and local botany meant the project was delayed a year.
Lawrence said the ski area would not be offering discounts on lift passes due to its unavailability in the first few weeks as it was normal for more lifts to open during the season.
The Curvey Basin and Alta chairlifts, and the beginner conveyers would be open today after 15cm of fresh snow in the last couple of days on a base of between 30cm and 50cm. ‘‘We’ve been running the snow guns at every opportunity and looking forward to some more fresh snow,’’ he said.
The Remarkables will open for the two weeks of July and the September/October holidays, and otherwise for weekends only.