Empty leg flights to and from Courchevel

Courchevel is the grandest resort of the Trois Vallées in Savoie, a string of villages from Le Praz at 1,300 metres up to Courchevel 1850, with luxury chalets, palace hotels and some of the most sought after skiing in the Alps. From December to April it draws one of the wealthiest winter crowds in Europe, and a large share of it arrives by private aircraft.

Courchevel also has one of the best known airfields in the world, an altiport at 2,007 metres whose 537 metre runway climbs at up to 18.5 per cent. A charter jet cannot use it. Private flights from Britain land at Chambéry, Geneva, Grenoble or Lyon and finish by helicopter or by road, and that is where the empty legs for Courchevel run too.

Empty legs to and from Courchevel right now

The board lists sectors into or out of the Courchevel altiport and Chambéry, the airport most jets use for the resort. When neither has anything, it shows Geneva, Grenoble, Lyon and Annecy instead, each within a helicopter hop of the Trois Vallées. Underneath sits a price list of the usual Chambéry routes, showing what the same aircraft costs when chartered in full.

Also moving across Geneva, Grenoble, Lyon and Annecy

Sectors on this list do not touch Courchevel itself. They are shown because the fields are close enough that the drive rarely costs you more than waiting for the right sector does. Tell us which one interests you and we will confirm it is still open.

Where Courchevel sectors come from

Courchevel's empty legs grow out of the ski calendar in three ways.

Flying time from London to Chambéry is about one hour forty minutes. Its 2,020 metre runway takes any business jet, so the choice of aircraft is wider than at the altiport: light and midsize jets carry most British ski parties, and the routes table is priced on an eight seat Citation XLS+. The altiport itself is a different world, open to commercial passengers only in a few approved light aircraft, the Pilatus PC-12 among them since 2021.

Courchevel Altiport in detail

A private trip to Courchevel uses two airfields: the altiport at the top of the resort and a jet gateway in the valley, usually Chambéry. The first rows cover the altiport, the last three Chambéry.

Two facts sum up the table. The altiport is for helicopters and a few light aircraft, and Chambéry fills up at weekends. A British party therefore flies a jet to Chambéry, or to Geneva when Chambéry is full, and covers the last stretch by helicopter or by road.

Where private passengers are handled for Courchevel

A private trip to Courchevel normally passes through two lounges: the business aviation terminal at the gateway, where passports and customs are checked, and the lounge at the altiport, where the helicopter lands.

For the passenger the sequence is simple: jet to the gateway, formalities in the terminal there, then a helicopter or a car. We book the helicopter with the flight, so that it waits beside the aircraft when you land.

The terminal from a passenger's side

This is how a Courchevel trip runs from the moment the jet lands in the valley to the chalet door, and back again.

Two things decide a smooth arrival: the Chambéry slot and the daylight. Everything else takes minutes, but neither a weekend without slots nor an early winter sunset can be argued with.

Four rules that shape a Courchevel trip

None of this is a reason to stay away, and every season thousands of passengers fly this way. It simply means that a Courchevel trip is planned around a slot, a sunset and a spare car, and that the empty sectors follow those same rhythms.

What the ground costs for Courchevel

The cost of a Courchevel trip is shaped less by airport fees than by the last leg and by a French tax on the way home.

The French solidarity tax is the item visitors notice. Since March 2025 it has been charged on every passenger leaving a French airport on a private flight, so four people flying home from Chambéry in a jet pay 1,680 euros between them. The same four leaving from the Swiss side of Geneva pay nothing, which is why some families fly out through Chambéry and home through Geneva. On the British side, Air Passenger Duty is charged only on the flight from Britain: a Citation XLS+ pays the standard rate of 32 GBP a head until April 2027, when the higher rate is due to reach every private jet of 5.7 tonnes or more.

Resorts in France also charge a tourist tax for each night, collected by the chalet or hotel, and the helicopter is usually quoted as a separate line. We show every one of these costs next to the flight price, so the comparison between Chambéry and Geneva is made on the whole trip.

Geneva, Grenoble, Lyon and the other gateways

For a jet, Chambéry is the closest gateway to Courchevel, but it is not the only one, and on a busy Saturday the others often decide the trip.

From the gateways to Courchevel 1850

The table gives the usual times from each gateway to Courchevel 1850 by road, and by helicopter to the altiport. Road times are for a normal winter weekday; on a Saturday in February, add an hour or more.

Every road into the Trois Vallées passes through Moûtiers, and on winter Saturdays the valley road is where time is lost. A helicopter avoids it altogether, but only in daylight and reasonable weather, so we book the car as well and send the skis and the heavy bags up by road.

Popular routes between the UK and Courchevel, and which way they run empty

Jets for Courchevel land at Chambéry, so the table lists Chambéry routes. Each figure is what one released sector usually sells for, for the whole aircraft rather than a seat, and booking the same jet for your own dates tends to cost around two and a half times as much; the price list under the board has the full charter figure. Flight times exclude taxiing, so add about half an hour at each end.

Because Chambéry has no hangars and little weekend parking, most aircraft that drop a party on a Saturday leave the same day and return a week later, so almost every charter produces two positioning sectors. Weekends are when both directions are busiest; a midweek sector is harder to find, but it lands at a calm airport with helicopters to spare.

Online calculator

If you want to see what your route would cost as a standard charter, so you have something to measure an empty leg against, use the calculator below. Fill in the airports, the dates and the number of passengers, add any preference on aircraft type, and we will send a written calculation by email or messenger. Please check your contact details carefully so that we can reply quickly.

The figure the calculator returns is an estimate for planning. The firm quote comes back from our consultants with the cost broken out line by line, and the price agreed there is the price written into the contract.

If you would rather skip the arithmetic, send us the route and the dates instead and a consultant will come back with both numbers, the charter price and any empty leg that fits.

Arriving in Courchevel from the UK

France is part of both the EU and the Schengen area, so a private flight from Britain crosses an external border at the gateway airport, where French border police check passports and customs officers may inspect the bags.

• Passport. For France, as for the rest of Schengen, a British passport must be less than ten years old on the day you arrive and still valid three months after you leave. Nights in the French Alps count towards the 90 days in any 180 that British visitors may spend across the Schengen area.
• Entry/Exit System. France has used the EU's digital border register since 12 October 2025, and it replaced passport stamps completely in April 2026. The first time a British traveller crosses, officers take a facial image and, for anyone aged twelve or over, a set of fingerprints.
• ETIAS. No application is needed yet. The EU has not fixed a launch date for its travel authorisation, which press reports now expect in 2027, and when it arrives it will cost 20 euros for adults aged 18 to 70 and cover three years, or less if the passport runs out first.
• Customs on arrival. Flying in from outside the EU, each traveller aged 15 or over may bring goods worth up to 430 euros free of duty, as well as the usual limits on alcohol and tobacco. Anyone carrying 10,000 euros or more in cash has to declare it, and no meat or dairy product of British origin, not even a sandwich, may enter France.
• Prior notice. Every private flight to or from France sends the border police the names and nationalities of passengers and crew in advance. The handler files the form, so all we need from you is a copy of each passport.
• Flying home. The British allowance for each adult arriving by private aircraft is 42 litres of beer, 18 litres of still wine, 4 litres of spirits, 200 cigarettes and 270 GBP of other goods. From 1 October 2026 champagne and other sparkling wines fall under the wine limit, and cider under the beer limit. Beaufort, Reblochon and other French cheeses may not be taken into Great Britain, and nor may ham, sausages or any other meat or dairy from cattle, sheep, pigs or goats.
• Taxes. Air Passenger Duty on the flight out of Britain, the French solidarity tax on the flight home from a French airport, and the resort's tourist tax on each night in a chalet or hotel.

Empty leg calendar for Courchevel, month by month

Courchevel lives almost entirely on its winter season, from early December to mid April, and the empty legs follow it closely. The cards show what drives each month.

For the widest choice of sectors, watch the Saturdays of February and the weekends either side of Christmas. For the calmest slopes and easier slots, choose mid January or the second half of March. Looking further ahead, Courchevel is due to stage the Olympic speed events, downhill and super G, in February 2030, when the Winter Games come to the French Alps.

Three situations, three answers

Flying to Courchevel with a dog or a cat

A pet from Britain enters France with a microchip, a rabies vaccination with 21 days to wait after the first dose, and an animal health certificate signed by an official vet no more than ten days before travel; an EU pet passport issued to an owner living in Britain is no longer accepted. The check happens where the passengers are cleared, at Chambéry or another airport with border control, never at the altiport. Arriving through Geneva means Swiss rules, which admit pets from Britain there. For the last leg, some helicopter operators accept animals under 12 kilograms in the cabin, and larger dogs travel up by car.

The journey back to Great Britain has its own conditions: dogs, cats and ferrets must travel on an approved route with an approved carrier, and a dog must be treated against tapeworm by a vet one to five days before landing. Vets in Courchevel and Moûtiers are used to British clients, but February appointments go fast, so book one when you book the flight and tell us about the animal at once, so that we approach only operators that take pets.

Questions about flying private to Courchevel

Call +44 7857 574938 , message the same number on WhatsApp , or write to flight@empty-leg.co.uk . Let us know which village or chalet you are heading for, the dates, the number of passengers and pairs of skis, and whether you would rather finish by helicopter or by road; we will reply with the matching sectors, a full charter price and a helicopter quote.