COVID-19 & Skiing Podcast #7: Doppelmayr USA President Katharina Schmitz – “We Are Used to Making Adjustments”

Download this episode on iTunes, Google Podcasts, Stitcher,TuneIn, and Pocket Casts | Read the full overview at skiing.substack.com.

What this is: This is the seventh in a series of short conversations exploring the fallout to the ski industry from the COVID-19-forced closure of every ski area on the continent in March 2020. Click through to listen to the first six: author Chris Diamond, Boyne Resorts CEO Stephen Kircher, Magic Mountain President Geoff Hatheway, NSAA CEO Kelly Pawlak, Berkshire East/Catamount Owner & Goggles for Docs founder Jon Schaefer, and Shaggy’s Copper Country Skis Cofounder Jeff Thompson.

Who: Katharina Schmitz, President of Doppelmayr USA

Why I interviewed her: Because if my spending is your income, then my budget cuts are your revenue cuts, and one of the most significant down-the-chain victims of the Great Ski Shutdown of 2020 is chairlift manufacturers. When a company like Vail says very bluntly that the immediate financial impact of the coronavirus-caused shutdown could be as much as $200 million, they have to make up some of that deficit somewhere. Often, the big-ticket items go first, and nothing in skiing is more big ticket than chairlifts. They are millions of dollars apiece, and they often aren’t absolutely necessary. Thanks to decades of consistent investment, the chairlift infrastructure at most large U.S. resorts is in quite good condition. The Kancamagus Quad at Loon, for example, is only 25 years old, and GM Jay Scambio told me on The Storm Skiing Podcast that it was still in good enough shape that there was a high probability that it would replace the Seven Brothers triple chair when the resort tore the quad out to make room for a new eight-pack this offseason. So when Boyne suddenly lost up to $22 million in end-of-season revenue, the obvious choice was to delay installation of the very expensive (perhaps eight figures expensive, but Boyne won’t say), new Kancamagus 8 and keep the perfectly good Kanc 4 running until it’s feasible to move ahead with the project without interruption. More significant perhaps than short-term cost savings, a delay avoids the risk of tearing out a key old lift and not being able to replace it prior to winter in the event of another work stoppage. Loon would descend into gridlock without some version of the Kanc lift. So I wanted to see how lift manufacturers were managing this sudden slowdown. Aside from the business component here, chairlifts are a central part of the resort skier’s experience, with lifts bound inextricably to the mountains we love and our conception of those places. While ...