Departure
95%
vs 95%
MY FS FLIGHTS
MY FS FLIGHTS
Saanen Airfield, better known to visiting pilots as Gstaad Airport, lies at 3304 feet amid the peaks of the Bernese Oberland, serving the resort villages of Saanen and Gstaad. Once a secret Swiss military base built under the wartime Redoubt strategy, it is today a general aviation field offering AFIS radio service, a single hard-surfaced runway and a striking alpine approach and departure environment.
Saanen Airfield (ICAO LSGK), operating commercially as Gstaad Airport, sits in the Saanenland valley in Canton de Berne, Switzerland, close to the villages of Saanen and Gstaad. It began life as a highly secret military airfield and has since developed into a general aviation airport handling private and business aircraft, gliders and helicopters, with operators including Air Glaciers and Air Sarina based on site. For a simulator pilot the appeal lies in the dramatic mountain setting, the alpine approach and departure paths, and the field's unusual wartime history as one of the airfields built to defend the Swiss Central Plateau's military capability during the Second World War.
The airfield lies in the heart of the Alps in the Saanenland region of the Bernese Oberland, in Canton de Berne, at coordinates 46.4864 N, 7.2486 E and an elevation of 3304 feet. It sits close to the villages of Saanen and Gstaad, from which the airport also takes its commercial name.
Saanen has a single physical runway orientated 08/26, hard-surfaced and lit. Runway 08 measures 3759 feet and Runway 26 measures 3591 feet, the differing published figures reflecting the two thresholds of the same strip. There is no ILS at the field.
The airfield is served by an AFIS frequency of 119.425 MHz. No instrument approach or ILS is available, so arrivals and departures are flown under visual conditions.
Detailed joining and circuit procedures are not covered in the available material, though pilots should expect the field to be worked on an AFIS basis rather than full ATC, consistent with its status as a mountain general aviation airfield.
No published visual reporting points are given in the available material, though the villages of Saanen and Gstaad, both immediately adjacent to the field, serve as the principal visual landmarks for locating the airport within the Saanenland valley.
Saanen airfield was ordered into construction as part of Switzerland's National Redoubt strategy in the Second World War, after it was decided that the military airfields of the Central Plateau were inadequately defended and needed replacing with sites in the Alpine redoubt zone. Preparations for the new military airfield were finalised in October 1939, though the site initially consisted only of a large reed bed that had to be rolled level and drained to form a grass strip. As heavier aircraft came into service the grass surface proved inadequate, and construction of a hard-surfaced runway measuring 900 by 40 metres began in early 1942, becoming operational at the end of that year along with hardened and drained taxiing areas, new access roads and bridges. Through the Cold War the military presence at Saanen increased further and the airfield remained a restricted, secretive site, absent from aeronautical almanacs and rarely shown on contemporary maps, with military secrecy maintained until the late 1980s. Exceptional approval for civilian use was first granted in 1946, lifting the ban on domestic powered aircraft and gliders, and a flight demonstration for local residents followed within a year, organised jointly by the Hoteliers' Association and the Gstaad Tourist Office. Aérodrome Régional de Montreux SA, later Aeroleasing SA Geneva, became the airfield's first civil operator in 1965. Air Sarina was founded in 1979, Air Glaciers moved into offices at Saanen in 1984, and the Gstaad-Saanenland Flight Cooperative (FGGS) was established in 1986 to secure civil air transport and repair the runway, drawing on private sponsorship and the entrepreneurial efforts of figures such as Aeroleasing's Ernst Saxer and TAG Aviation in transforming the former military base into a civil general aviation airport.
Operating today as Gstaad Airport, the field offers general aviation services including handling, refuelling, parking, and customs and passport control for both Schengen and non-Schengen arrivals, prior permission being required for such clearance. Published operating hours vary seasonally: in winter (December to March) the field is open from 0800 local time to half an hour after sunset for aircraft and 0800 to 2000 local time for helicopters, with similar hours in summer and low season; office hours for PPR requests run from 0800 to 1700 local time, with arrangements possible outside these hours. Air Glaciers and Air Sarina both maintain a presence at the airfield, reflecting its continuing role in general aviation, helicopter operations and mountain flying in the Saanenland.