On the 1st and 2nd of June 2019, it was the weekend of Ascension, thus, it was an extended weekend.
Add to this the fact that the weather was simply beautiful, you have the perfect recipe for an extremely busy weekend for the Aiguille du Midi cable car.
According to Le Dauphine, last weekend, the queue at the Aiguille du Midi was constantly tens of meters long, starting from 8 am and, as one might imagine, there were people who were displeased with the waiting.
The Aiguille du Midi cable car, which carries tourists who want to see the magnificent panorama at 3,800 m or 12,467 ft altitude, had shipped around 3,500 people per day for four days.
"We have not been able to anticipate this phenomenon", says Damien Girardier, the site director.
The extended weekend and the favourable weather were the culprits of the overcrowded Aiguille du Midi cable car. "It's an exceptional situation, with an extended weekend, with beautiful weather when we came out of a long period of bad weather", declared Antoine Burnet, the sales and marketing director of the Compagnie du Mont-Blanc.
Moreover, the summer season does not start until the 15th of June, which means that the seasonal workers were not present this past weekend.
"The morning boarding was complicated. The returns were fine even if people did not want to leave. Closing the summit terrace becomes difficult", comments Damien Girardier.
The unexpected high attendance at the Aiguille du Midi was worthy of early August.
The Compagnie du Mont-Blanc apologized for this situation and promised they would work on a better organization.
