Verbier bids farewell to Switzerland’s oldest gondola after 56 years

Verbier has retired the Savoleyres gondola, Switzerland’s oldest operating cable car, after 56 years of service and around 16 million passenger journeys. The historic Giovanola-built installation made its final run on 30 August 2026, with Téléverbier marking the occasion through a farewell event at the Savoleyres summit.

A distinctive icon of Swiss lift engineering

Opened in 1970, the Verbier–Savoleyres gondola was the last remaining Giovanola-designed installation of its kind still in operation anywhere in the world. Its hexagonal silver cabins, roofed design and bright orange numbering made it one of the most recognisable lifts in the Alps, and it was even blessed by a priest at the time of its inauguration.

For generations of skiers and summer visitors, the lift formed a core part of the Verbier experience, linking the village with the Savoleyres sector across more than five decades of continuous operation.

Why the gondola was retired

Despite an unblemished safety record — no accidents were recorded in 56 years — key components no longer met current safety standards. The clamp that connects the cabins to the haul rope was among the parts that could not be brought up to modern requirements without effectively rebuilding the system.

The cabins themselves also had an inherent design limitation: their geometry made them unusually sensitive to wind, leading to more frequent closures in adverse conditions. Together, these factors meant that continued operation was no longer viable, even though the structure had become a beloved landmark.

Replacement with a modern Télémixte

The retirement forms part of a wider modernisation of the Verbier–Savoleyres connection. The historic line is being replaced by the new Esserts–Savoleyres Télémixte, a hybrid lift built by Doppelmayr-Garaventa that combines detachable six-person chairs with 10-person gondola cabins.

The gondola section will run from Les Esserts at roughly 1,700 m to Savoleyres at about 2,200 m, while the chairlift portion will link the intermediate Les Planards station with the summit. The system is designed to move up to 1,675 passengers per hour, significantly increasing capacity and comfort compared with the vintage gondola.

The first phase, between Planards and Savoleyres, opened in December 2025, and full operation of the Esserts–Savoleyres link is scheduled for the 2026/27 winter season. A new skiable route will also connect the Les Ruinettes sector to the new lift, improving circulation across the sprawling Verbier 4 Vallées area.Context within Verbier’s lift network

The Savoleyres gondola arrived during a period of rapid expansion at Verbier. Téléverbier, founded in 1950 as Télésiège de Médran SA, oversaw the resort’s transformation from a small ski area into one of the largest in the Alps. By the end of 1970, the company operated 29 lifts, and the Savoleyres gondola replaced an earlier single-seat chairlift that had served the sector since the 1950s

Over time, virtually all of the infrastructure from that era has been renewed or replaced, leaving the Giovanola gondola as the last surviving piece of that original generation of lifts. Its retirement closes a chapter in Swiss cableway history, even as the new Télémixte positions Verbier for the next phase of development.

Legacy of the “silver hexagons”

While the new lift will be faster, more wind-resistant and more accessible, the distinctive silver hexagonal cabins with orange numbers are likely to remain a potent symbol of Verbier’s heritage. For many regular visitors, the sound and motion of those vintage cabins, along with the ritual of boarding them season after season, formed an integral part of their connection to the resort.

Téléverbier’s farewell event, complete with raclette and a guest book for memories, underlined how the gondola had become more than infrastructure: it was a shared reference point for decades of skiers, hikers and mountain workers. As the new Esserts–Savoleyres line comes into service, that legacy will persist in resort lore, photographs and the stories of those who rode the oldest gondola in Switzerland.