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New Coronet Peak Chairlift

Doppelmayr and Icon Logistics have had a strong business relationship for several years, working together across a number of logistics projects to install chairlifts to some of New Zealand’s most popular, and yet challenging, ski fields in the South Island.

Icon Logistics are working with Doppelmayr to transport the latest chairlift expansion up the mountain from the Doppelmayr factory in Austria. The project is part of a larger $35 million development at Queenstown ski fields at Coronet Peak and the Remarkables.

The chairlift is a custom-built feat of engineering, that is built to specifications in Austria, and then shipped to New Zealand, unpacked from containers in Dunedin, freighted to Frankton, to be assembled at the ski field. The project involves 44 40-foot shipping containers and will involve a strict unpacking schedule checked by the Ministry of Primary industries (MPI), as New Zealand’s mountainous regions contain some very rare and vulnerable flora and fauna.

Icon Logistics will work with MPI to have every shipping container unpacked at their facility in Dunedin via a Combilift recently purchased and shipped from Ireland. The units will then be stored on skids at the yard, before heading into Central Otago to be stored in Frankton.

Six trucks will be involved every day to move the units, with a crane on site to unload them. With the units on skids and a crane involved, unloading time will be cut from 2-3 hours to approx. 45 minutes. Second trailer units will be pre-packed for drivers allowing for an even quicker turnaround time.

A pre-site check was undertaken by Icon Logistics and staff have been fully briefed across the process, so that the skilled drivers and all staff involved in the coordination of this project know the risks and the key points needed to have this operation running smoothly and efficiently. The Doppelmayr chairlifts are a beautiful piece of European engineering that needs extreme care and impeccable coordination to ensure they arrive in a pristine standard to this beautiful yet remote mountain region of New Zealand.